ESPECIALLY MYCTOPHOIDS 5 
the Upper Cretaceous, however teleosts below the acanthopterygian grade have re- 
ceived no modern comparable treatment, except for the work of Dunkle (1940) on the 
elopoid Notelops brama, and Bardack (1965) on the ichthyodectids. 
The important earlier works on Cretaceous fish faunas are those of Agassiz (1833- 
1844), Heckel (1849), Pictet (1850), Pictet and Humbert (1866) and Davis (1887), and 
with the exception of Agassiz were all primarily concerned with material from the 
Lebanon. Dixon (1850) described forms from the English Chalk; von der Marck 
(1858, 1863) those from the Westphalian Chalk; and both Bassani (1882) and Kram- 
berger (1895) considered the Dalmatian Chalk. The information contained in these 
and other earlier works was collected together and reinterpreted by Woodward 
(1901). The fish fauna of the English Chalk was later extensively treated in a mono- 
graph by Woodward (1902-1912). More recently d’Erasmo (1946) has worked on 
the Upper Cretaceous fauna from Comen near Trieste, Siegfried (1954) has reviewed 
von der Marck’s Westphalian material, Arambourg (1954) has described a new fauna 
from Morocco, and Leonardi (1966) has reported on a Sicilian fauna. 
Originally the work was begun as a revision of Woodward’s (1901) family Encho- 
dontidae. It was hoped that a study of the poorly known genera included in this 
family would yield possible ancestral forms for the present day Myctophiformes. 
This view had been expressed by Woodward (1901: ix) when he stated that “ the 
Enchodontidae might perhaps furnish the ancestors” of the isospondylous scopeloids. 
All of the genera in the family have been considered and most are described at some 
length in the following pages. Only those species represented by reasonably com- 
plete material have been included, species erected on isolated teeth or jaw fragments 
are omitted. The Upper Cretaceous fauna of the United States has not been treated 
due to the absence of good material in collections outside America. 
During the study of the Enchodontidae it soon became clear that many of the 
included genera were not at all closely related. In order to elucidate the systematic 
position of some of these genera it was necessary to consider two more of Woodward’s 
(1901) families, the Dercetidae and Scopelidae. Many of the genera were found to be 
not only widely separated, but referable to different suborders and even orders. 
Consequently recent representatives of the orders Elopiformes, Salmoniformes and 
Myctophiformes have also been studied. 
The first part of the work is devoted to the detailed description of the fossil genera, 
and is set out in sequence from the most primitive Salmoniformes up through the 
Myctophiformes to the Ctenothrissiformes. The findings concerned with the Elopi- 
formes have been published elsewhere (Goody, 1969). In the second part, each of 
these major fossil groups is considered in relation to its systematic position, while 
certain morphological problems and possible modes of life are also discussed. Thirdly 
the information set out in the first two parts is used in an overall consideration of 
teleost evolution within the Cretaceous. 
Most of the fossil material used is from the collections in the British Museum 
(Natural History), referred to, throughout this work, asthe B.M.N.H. Type material 
has been examined wherever possible and certain specimens have been loaned from 
museums in Europe. Where such material has been examined, mention is made in 
the text. 
