CARANGIDiE.-SCOMBRID^. 
451 
Foss. p. 8, pi. Ixxii. figs. 3-5, and woodc.—^Middle Eocene 
(Calcaire Grossier); Paris. [Generically indeterminable 
imperfect fish ; Paris Museum of Natural History.] 
Nothing is known of the so-called Vomer parvulus (L. Agassiz, 
Poiss. Foss. vol. V. pt. i. 1844, p. 31) from the Upper Cretaceous of 
Mt. Lebanon. 
The following otolith is supposed to belong to a member of this 
family— 
Otolithus {Carangidarum') americanus^ E. Koken, Zeitschr. 
deutsch. geol. Ges. vol. xl. (1888), p. 277, pi. xvii. figs. 
1-3.—Lower Tertiary; Vicksburg & Jackson Fiver, 
Mississippi. 
The existing genus EcJieneis, with the anterior dorsal fin modified 
into an adhesive disk, is usually placed with the Scombridae; but 
it is represented by an extinct species in the Oligocene slates of 
Canton Glarus, Switzerland, which is remarkable as exhibiting 
only 10 abdominal and 13 caudal vertebrae. This fish is known 
only by one specimen in the Berne Museum, which has the disk 
narrower and a little further back than in the typical EcJieneis. It 
is described as Echeneis glaronensis by A. Wettstein, Fischfauna 
Tertiaer. Glarnerschief. (Denkschr. schweiz. Palaeont. Ges. vol. xiii. 
1886), p. 82, pi. vii. fig. 10, and is discussed by R. Storms, Ann. 
Mag. Nat. Hist. [6] vol. ii. (1888), p. 73. The new generic name 
Opisthomyzon is proposed for it by E. D. Cope, Amer. Nat. vol. xxiii 
(1889), p. 355. 
Family SCOMBRID^. 
Snout not produced into an elongated rostrum; no supramaxillae 
gape wide, and teeth conical, forming a more or less powerful 
dentition. Vertebrae from 28 to 160 in total number; centra of 
abdominal region with transverse processes in fusiform types, but 
without these processes in the more elongate t 3 ’pes. Pelvic fins, 
when present, thoracic, with one spine and not more than five 
articulated rays ; spinous portion of dorsal fin more extended than 
articulated portion; usuall}'’ finlets behind dorsal and anal fins. 
Scales small or absent, and no bony scutes; lateral line distinct. 
All the existing members of this family are marine, most of them 
being pelagic, some characteristic of the deep sea. In outward 
shape and the development of the median fins, the genera are as 
2g 2 
