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BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
seems designed to afford additional surface and leverage for the origin of the muscle 
that controls the movements of the caudal fin or tail. 
This is all that need be said in the present paper in regard to the osteology of 
Micropterus. My object in writing this contribution has been to collect together the 
scattered accounts of the various parts of the skeleton previously given by me in 
different publications, and to review and correct any errors that may have crept into 
my previous work upon this form. The paper, it is hoped, will prove useful in con- 
nection with a general study of the comparative osteology of the entire family of the 
Gentrarchidce , which some day may be either undertaken by myself or some other 
anatomist. That such a research should be made and published no one has any 
doubt. 
Doctors Jordan and Evermann, in their Fishes of North and Middle America (Part 
I, pp. 984-1012), have treated quite fully of the species and genera of this group, and 
have given us a very useful classification of them. Nevertheless we stand much in need 
of full and comparative accounts of the skeletons of Pomoxis, Centrarchus , Acantharchus , 
Ambloplites and other genera, and especially of the sun-fishes, Apomotis , Lepomis, 
and j Eupomotis. When such comparative osteological studies come to be made, and 
comparisons made with the skeleton in the Serranidw and other families, it is believed 
that the present contribution to the subject, taken in connection with the figures and 
text matter of the memoir on Amia, will prove to be more or less useful. 
