MULLERS TO P K N < >T . 
46 1 
the neighbourhood of Landskrona. According to Schager- 
Strom", however, its usual length in the Sound is no more 
than 12 — 15 cm., though a specimen 22 cm. long has 
been taken off Landskrona. According to Malm it is found 
“along the whole coast of Bohuslan, where it generally 
keeps to a rocky bottom, at a depth of from 7 to 9 fa- 
thoms, and is taken pretty often, partly in Flounder-nets 
and partly in lobster-pots.” Fries found the species in 
1836 and 1837 at the entrance of Gullmar Fjord; and in 
recent years the Royal Museum has received specimens 
of Muller’s Topknot that had been taken together with 
other fishes in the Cattegat, “12 miles off Halmstad.” 
The food of Muller’s Topknot is composed of fish 
and crustaceans. In the pharynx of a specimen 20 cm. 
long, from Dynekil, I found a Black Goby, of a total 
length of about 8 l / 2 cm., but with the forepart already 
digested, while the hind part and the caudal tin had stuck 
fast in the pharynx. In the stomach of Muller’s Topknot 
Gottsche found shrimps ( Paleemon and My sis), Kroyer 
“a half digested fish , perhaps a young Herring,” and 
Olsson 0 Sand-eels ( Ammodytes ). 
The spawning-season occurs in spring and summer. 
The above specimen from Dynekil is a female with al- 
most ripe roe, and was taken on the 12th of May, 1887; 
and on the 11th of June, 1853, Malm received a female 
that had been taken off Inholmar 0 , and “was on the very 
point of depositing its roe. In September the fry have 
attained a length of about 25 mm. “As the ovaries are 
by no means small, and the eggs extremely tine and con- 
sequently very numerous, it is difficult to explain,” says 
Kroyer, “why this species is so rare in our waters.” 
Still, Muller’s Topknot is not a rare species, but it 
is despised. Fishermen generally pay no attention to it: 
its handsome appearance has no charms for them. In 
Scandinavia there is no demand for it, though its flesh d 
is said to be of excellent flavour. 
ONOMORPHI. 
Symmetrical 
31a l a copter yg i a n Ph i 
cereal 
soclysts* with the lower pharyngeals free from each 
(isocercal). Ventral fins, where present, jugular. 
other. 
Caudal fin diphy- 
The Codfishes, the type of this series, were known 
by the Greeks as onos f , by the Romans as asellus, both 
these names referring to the coloration of the body in 
these fishes, gray above and white below, which appar- 
ently had some fancied resemblance to the colour of the 
ass. The series is particularly rich in forms, and in- 
cludes the greater part of Muller’s Anacantliini 9 . In 
Gunther’s writings it is termed Anacantliini gadoidei. 
From the rest of the Malacopterygian Physoclysts 
the series is sufficiently distinguished by its symmetrical 
structure, which is not disturbed, as in the preceding 
series by any shifting of the eye, and by the free lower 
pharyngeals, which are not united to each other, as in 
the next preceding series. In addition to these charac- 
ters, however, it has one which separates it from most 
of the preceding osseous fishes in general, and which lies 
in the structure of the caudal fin. In the Onomorphous 
fishes this part of the body apparently remains persist- 
ently at a stage of development that is proper to the em- 
bryo in most fishes, the termination of the spinal column 
being straight at the end, arid occupying the middle of 
the base of the caudal fin. In most of the Onomorphs 
the caudal part retains this structure throughout the life 
of the fish; or the caudal fin may even be absolutely re- 
duced, in which case the tail ends like a whip-lash. But 
in the true Cods and their kindred species, with well- 
developed (secondary) caudal fin, the last two haunal 
arches are transformed into true hypural bones — not so 
a Physiogr. Sallsk Tidskr., p. 312. 
b Lnnds Univ. Arsskr. 1871, p. 10 (sep.). 
c North of Vinga, in the island-belt of Gothenburg. 
d Cornish, in Day. 
e According to Gunther ( Report On the Shore Fishes , Zool. Chall. Exp., Part. VI. p. 18) Maramolepis — fam. Ophicliidtc, but with 
the first ray of the dorsal fin filamentous and separated from the others — is furnished with a pneumatic duct from the air-bladder. Thus, 
this genus, within the above family, has the characters of the Eels ( Apodes ) as well as of the Onion-fishes ( Macruridce ). 
f ovog or ovtoxog; also v.aHaqlag or ya'/Mxotag. The largest Cods, however, according to Pliny (lib. 9, cap. 17), were known by 
the Greeks as bacclius. Gadus is a younger Greek name, which is said to occur first in Athen.eus (about 150 A. D.), in a quotation from 
Dorion: u, 'Orog or vMXeovol zireg yadov.” 
'J Cope (Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc., Philad., vol. XIV, n. ser., p. 458) and Gill (Smiths. Misc. Coll., No. 247, p. 3) also confine the 
name of Anacanthini to this series exclusively. 
