No. 396.] REVIEWS OF RECENT LITERATURE. 977 
terrestrial and semi-aquatic species. They are wanting, or greatly 
reduced, in the strictly aquatic and strictly terrestrial forms. The 
author believes that these bladders are receptacles for liquid stored 
up for the use of the animal, but he could not confirm the statement 
of earlier observers that the fluid was water taken in through the 
cloaca. GHP. 
Osteology of the Percesoces. — Professor Edwin Chapin Starks, 
now of the University of Washington, gives in the Proceedings of the 
United States National Museum, pp. 1-10, a valuable study of the 
osteology of the suborder of fishes known as Percesoces. He finds 
the members of this group less closely related than would be supposed 
from their resemblance in external characters, although really allied. 
The Sphyrazenide (Barracudas) stand as a group opposed to the 
remaining families Mugilide (mullets) and Atherinidz (silversides : 
Pesce-Rey). The osteology of a typical member of each family is 
given, with illustrative plates by the skillful hand of Mrs. Starks, 
who, as Chloe Lesley, was formerly the artist of the Hopkins Labo- 
ratory at Stanford University. 
In all these species the so-called coronoid bone is present, but 
Professor Starks doubts its homology with the coronoid bone of 
reptiles, and thinks that the systematists have made too much of it 
and the anatomists not enough. It has little systematic value, for it 
is present in many unrelated genera (catfish, sucker, striped bass, 
bluefish, cod), while, on the other hand, it has been generally over- 
looked by anatomists as a structure present in fishes. 
_ Starks on the Relationships of Dinolestes. — In the Proceedings 
of the United States National Museum, Professor Edwin Chapin Starks 
undertakes to settle the vexed question of the affinities of the Aus- 
tralian fish, Dénolestes lewini, by a study of its osteology. 
In spite of its resemblance to the Barracuda and the Pesce-Rey, 
he finds no evidence of close affinity and places Dinolestes among 
the true percoids. It is probably allied to Sphyrenops and Scom- 
brops and belongs to the family of Cheilodipteridz. 
The Peripheral Nervous System of Bony Fishes. — The cranial 
and first spinal nerves of the common silverside, Menidia, have been 
investigated by C. J. Herrick.’ Four components are now generally 
recognized in the spinal nerves of vertebrates: (1) somatic motor 
1 Herrick, C. J. The Peripheral Nervous System of the Bony Fishes, Bu//. 
U. S. Fish Comm., 1898. pp. 315-320. 1899. 
