ONOMORPHS. 
581 
Fami. MACRUR1DJE. 
Body clavate ( more or less tadpole-like), with more or less straight lack and concave ( arcuate ) caudo-ventral 
margin , compressed, with elongated, more or less whip-like tail; covered with thin but spiny, carinated or striated 
scales. No distinct caudal fin ( the vertical fins confluent behind), but a distinct anterior dorsal fin or at 
least a trace thereof in the elongation of the first dorsal rays. Teeth on the intermaxillary bones and in the lower 
jaw , but the vomer , palatine bones, and tongue toothless; mouth highly protrusile. Gill-openings large; brancliio- 
stegal membranes more or less united to each other, but free from the isthmus. Branchiostegal rays 6 or 7. 
Pseudob rand vice wanting. Air-bladder present. Pgloric appendages well-developed. 
Here we have a family consisting almost exclusively 
of deep-sea fishes"; and besides the characters given 
above we observe in the first place those peculiarities 
which generally belong to such fishes, especially in the 
loose structure of the head, with its ample space for 
muciferous canals. Two in particular of the cephalic 
bones, the nasal bones, are greatly enlarged, and form 
the framework of the highly variable form of the snout in 
the Grenadiers, as these fishes are called in Italy 6 . The 
suborbital bones, which form the lower margin of the 
orbit, also afford an instance of a systematic peculiarity 
rare among the Anacanthini. They sometimes develop a 
connexion with the opercular apparatus similar to that 
we have seen above in the Gottomorphi and Cyclopteridce. 
Another systematic exception might also be used as an 
argument in favour of the inclusion of these fishes 
among the Acanthopterygians. The first large ray in the 
anterior dorsal fin (really the second ray in the fin, the 
first ray being extremely short and rudimentary) is a 
true spinous ray, without joints. These two points of 
resemblance to the Acanthopterygians might well induce 
us to range the family Macruridce beside the Gurnards 
and the Agonidce, according to SwainsonV proposal. 
However, if we trace the form-series back to the least 
differentiated Grenadier types'*, we find in the form of 
the head the most distinct approximation to the Phycis 
group, within which the relationship to the Grenadier- 
fishes is also expressed in the form of the snout in the 
American Haloporphyrus ( Antimora ) viola e . In the cra- 
nium, too, we find an evident sign of the relationship 
to the Codfishes in the advanced development of the 
styloid bone (os opisthoticum) , and the lobate process 
erected in an upward and backward direction on the 
hind part of the intermaxillary bones is also as well- 
developed as in most of the Codfishes. Thus, the most 
natural place of the Grenadier-fishes in the system is 
beside the Codfishes, as a remarkable variation of the 
Anacanthine type, with a characteristic common among 
deep-sea fishes in the reversion to or retention of the 
original form of the tail without separate caudal fin 7 . 
The primitive (palauchthyic) appearance of the Grenadier- 
fishes also depends on the covering of scales. In one 
species we find the scales replaced by projecting spines 
scattered in the skin. Only in few species and in the 
fry of other species do we meet with thin, fully typical 
cycloid scales. In the rest of the family the scales are 
generally furnished throughout their free surface with 
spines or raised carinae, which give the fish a Ganoid 
appearance. Bonaparte, therefore, referred the Grena- 
dier-fishes to the order Ganoidei, when in 1837 he 
established a special family 9 , Macrouridce, for these forms. 
A juvenile form, Krohnius, is described by Cocco 7 ' 
and Emery' as reminding us, by the long rays of the 
ventral fins and the position of the first dorsal fin far 
forward on the head, of the larvae of the Trachypteroids , 
but as most closely resembling, in the form of the 
“ One species ( M acruronus novce-zelandias) is said to live in shallower water. 
6 See Risso, Ichthyologie de Nice, p. 201, where the name is supposed to have originated from the resemblance between a soldier’s 
helmet and the snout of Macrurus coelorhynclius. The same name occurs in Cuvier ( R'egne Animal, tome II, ed. 1, p. 217; ed. 2, p. 336) 
and in Brown-Goode {Fisher., Fish. Industr. U. S., Sect. I, p. 244). 
c Nat. Hist. Fish., Amph., Rept., vol. II, pp. 179 and 261. 
d See for example Macrurus ( Nematonurus ) longifilis , Gunther, Deep Sea Fishes, Chall. Exped., p. 151, pi. XXXV. 
e Brown-Goode, The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States, Sect. I, pi. 64; GOnther, 1. c., p. 94, pi. XV. 
I A separate caudal fin may, however, appear to be present. This is due to cicatrization following upon the breaking off of the tail 
in an adult Grenadier-fish. Cf. Nilsson, Slcand. Fauna, Fislcarne, p. 606. 
g Trans. Linn. Soc. London, vol. XVIII (1838 — 1841), p. 295. 
h Giorn. Gabin. Letter. Messina, anno III, tomo V, fasc. XXV (1844), p. 21; reprinted in 11 Naturalista Siciliano, anno VII, No. 4, 
l:o Gennajo 1888, p. 101. 
1 Mem. d. R. Acad. d. Lincei, scr. 3, vol. Ill, p. 395, figs. 7 and 8. 
