400 
SPINY-FINNED GROUP, 
A fossil species of grey mullet has been described from the upper Eocene of 
Provence, and an extinct genus from the Cretaceous. Our figure represents the 
common grey mullet ( M . capito), one of several species frequenting the British 
coasts. Although this mullet only grows to a weight of about 4 lbs., some of 
the foreign species may scale three times as much. This mullet has been 
kept in a fresh-water pond, where it seemed to thrive better than in the sea. 
The flesh of all the grey mullets is of good quality, but bears no comparison 
to that of their red namesakes. 
Gar-Pike and Flying-Fish,— Family S combiiesocidsE. 
In this place may be noticed a family in regard to the serial position of which 
there is some difference of opinion, Dr. Gunther placing it among the tube-bladdered 
fishes, while Professor Cope considers that its true position is here. The inclusion 
of the group among the tube-bladdered fishes utterly spoils the definition of that 
suborder, since in those members of the present family provided with an air- 
bladder that organ lacks a duct. It is true that the fins of the flying-fishes and their 
allies are less spiny than those of the more typical representatives of the suborder 
under consideration, but, as we have seen, this character is one of but slight 
morphological value. Agreeing with the preceding section in the abdominal 
position of the pelvic fins, these fishes differ from those yet described, with the 
exception of certain perches, in the union of the lower pharyngeal bones; while 
they are further characterised by the absence of a spinal dorsal fin, and the 
deeply forked caudal. The single dorsal is situated opposite to the anal fin in the 
caudal region, the air-bladder is generally present, the false gills are hidden and 
glandular, and the simple stomach merely forms a dilatation of the intestinal tract. 
Although the majority of the members of this family are marine, some being 
pelagic, a few have taken to a fresh-water existence; and while many of the latter 
are viviparous, the whole of the others deposit eggs in the usual manner. Dis¬ 
tributed over all the temperate and tropical seas, these fish are strictly carnivorous 
in their habits. Geologically, the family is a comparatively ancient one, the gar- 
pike being represented by an extinct species in the Sicilian Miocene, and by an 
allied extinct genus in the Eocene of Monte Bolca, while a fish nearly allied to the 
living flying-fishes occurs in the Cretaceous rocks of the Lebanon. 
In North America it appears that the name “ gar-pike ” is applied 
indifferently to a member of the present family, and to the very 
distinct fish also known as the bony pike; but in scientific nomenclature it will be 
better to confine the term to the members of the present genus. Gar-pike are 
represented by nearly fifty species from temperate and tropical seas, among which 
the figured one (Belone vulgaris) is common on the British coasts, likewise ranging 
over the whole of the seas of Northern Europe. As a genus, these fishes are 
easily recognised by the production of the jaws into a long slender beak, formed in 
the upper one exclusively by the premaxillary bones; while they are further 
characterised by the whole of the rays of the dorsal and anal fins being connected 
by membrane. The beak is, however, only developed in the adult, very young 
specimens having the jaws of normal form; and it is not a little remarkable that 
