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SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
Subfamily CYPRININ IE. 
Dorsal fin much longer than the anal ( length of the latter at most 3 / 4 of that of the former ), its distance from 
the tip of the snout, as a rule less than (. sometimes about equal to) tivice the length of the head. Among the 
simple rags at the anterior margin both of the dorsal fin ( 3 or 4) and the anal (2 or 3) the hindmost is gene- 
rally hard as bone and spiniferous at the hind margin. Lateral line on the tail occupying the middle of the 
depth of the body. Ventral margin terete. Mouth as a rule furnished with barbels. Pharyngeal cartilage as a 
rule triangular , with the anterior margin straight or slightly convex. Length of the intestinal canal (■ including 
the stomach and oesophagus) as a rule severed times greater than the length of the body. 
We have given the first place among these charac- 
ters to the one which seems to us to be the most dis- 
tinct external token of the direction of development 
followed by the subfamily: a long dorsal tin, developed 
especially in front, as opposed to a short anal fin. In 
the Scandinavian fauna this character is not impaired 
by a single exception; but in consequence of another 
developmental change, by which the relative length of 
the head decreases with age, it sometimes happens that, 
in large Crucian Carp for example, the length of the 
head is somewhat Jess than half the distance between 
the dorsal fin and the tip of the snout, while the Tench 
also resembles, as a rule, in this respect the following 
subfamily. The systematic significance of the barbels 
we have already seen within the families both of the 
Sheatfish and the Loach; but here it sometimes happens 
that one species of a genus ( Cyprinus ) possesses them, 
while others are without them: — and yet these species 
interbreed with each other so freely that it seems far 
too artificial to separate them into distinct genera. With 
its present definition, however, the subfamily includes 
all the Scandinavian Cyprinoids that are furnished with 
barbels. The same irregularity affects another charac- 
ter, the serration of the last undivided and osseous ray 
in the dorsal and anal fins: this may be present in 
some species of a genus {Barbus), but wanting in others, 
while in the Scandinavian fauna it is wanting in two 
genera of this subfamily ( Gobio and Tinea), which in 
other respects as well (the form of the pharyngeal 
cartilage and the length of the intestinal canal) show 
signs of a transition to the following subfamily. 
The genera that occur within the limits of the 
Scandinavian fauna, may be distinguished as follows: 
A: Length of the dorsal fin more than twice 
that of the anal. Genus Cyprinus. 
B: Length of the dorsal tin less than twice 
that of the anal. 
a: Least depth of the tail less than 2 / 3 
of the length of the head..., Genus Gobio. 
b: Least depth of the tail more than -/. 
of the length of tire head. Genus Tinea. 
Genus CYPRINUS. 
Base of the dorsal fin more than tivice that of the anal fin. 
ceptionally 16), in the anal fin cd most 7 ( exceptionally 8). 
strongly osseous and behind spiniferous. 
than 40— thick and hard. 
As Gunther" has remarked, rve are fully justified 
in retaining the generic name of Cyprinus in its ori- 
ginal signification — in the first place as a name for 
Branched rays in the dorsal fin at least 17 (ex- 
Both these fins with one of the anterior rays 
Scales large — their number in the lateral line less 
hard. 
the Carp — , in spite of the fact that neither Artedi 
nor LinNyEUS has always been so exact in his syste- 
matic enumeration of the Cyprinoids as to range the 
Cat. Brit. Mus., Fish., vol. VII, p. 25, note. 
