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Fig. 249.—Bregmaceros macclellandii.
A dwarf Gadoid, the only one found at the surface between the
Tropics. B. macclellandii scarcely exceeds three inches in length, is
not uncommon in the Indian Ocean, and has found its way to New
Zealand; specimens have been picked up in mid-ocean.
Murænolepis.—Body covered with lanceolate epidermoid
productions, intersecting each other at right angles like those of a
Freshwater-eel. Vertical fins confluent, no caudal being discernible; an
anterior dorsal fin is represented by a single filamentous ray; ventral
fins narrow, composed of several rays. A barbel. Jaws with a band of
villiform teeth; palate toothless.
One species (M. marmoratus) from Kerguelen’s Land.
Chiasmodus.—Body naked; stomach and abdomen distensible.
Two dorsal fins and one anal; a separate caudal; ventral fins rather
narrow, with several rays. Upper and lower jaws with two series of
large pointed teeth, some of the anterior being very large and
movable; teeth on the palatine bones, but none on the vomer. Chin
without barbel.
This Gadoid (Ch. niger, Fig. 111, p. 311), inhabits great depths in
the Atlantic (to 1500 fathoms). The specimen figured was taken with
a large Scopeloid in its stomach.
Brosmius.—Body moderately elongate, covered with very small
scales. A separate caudal, one dorsal, and one anal; ventrals narrow,
composed of five rays. Vomerine and palatine teeth. A barbel.
The “Torsk” (B. brosme) is confined to the northern parts of the
temperate zone, and probably extends to the arctic circle.
Third Family—Ophidiidæ.
Body more or less elongate, naked, or scaly. Vertical fins
generally united; no separate anterior dorsal or anal; dorsal
occupying the greater portion of the back. Ventral fins rudimentary or
absent, jugular. Gill-openings wide, the gill-membranes not attached
to the isthmus.
Marine fishes (with the exception of Lucifuga), partly littoral, partly
bathybial. They may be divided into five groups.
I. Ventral fins present, attached to the humeral arch: Brotulina.
Brotula.—Body elongate, covered with minute scales. Eye of
moderate size. Each ventral reduced to a single filament, sometimes
bifid at its extremity. Teeth villiform; snout with barbels. One pyloric
appendage.
Five species of small size from the Tropical Atlantic and Indian
Ocean.
Fig. 250.—Lucifuga dentata, from caves in Cuba.
Lucifuga are Brotula organised for a subterranean life. The eye is
absent, or quite rudimentary, and covered by the skin; the barbels of
Brotula are replaced by numerous minute ciliæ or tubercles. They
inhabit the subterranean waters of caves in Cuba, and never come
to the light.
Bathynectes.—Body produced into a long tapering tail, without
caudal. Mouth very wide, villiform teeth in the jaws, on the vomer and
palatine bones. Barbel none. Ventral fins reduced to simple or bifid
filaments, placed close together, and near to the humeral symphysis.
Gill-membranes not united; gill-laminæ remarkably short. Bones of the
head soft and cavernous; operculum with a very feeble spine above.
Deep-sea fishes, inhabiting depths varying from 1000 to 2500
fathoms. Three species are known, the largest specimen obtained
being seventeen inches long.
Fourth Family—Macruridæ.
Body terminating in a long, compressed, tapering tail, covered
with spiny, keeled, or striated scales. One short anterior dorsal; the
second very long, continued to the end of the tail, and composed of
very feeble rays; anal of an extent similar to that of the second
dorsal; no caudal. Ventral fins thoracic or jugular, composed of
several rays.
Fourth Order—Physostomi.
All the fin-rays articulated, only the first of the dorsal and pectoral
fins is sometimes ossified. Ventral fins, if present, abdominal, without
spine. Air-bladder, if present, with a pneumatic duct (except in
Scombresocidæ).
First Family—Siluridæ.
Skin naked or with osseous scutes, but without scales. Barbels
always present; maxillary bone rudimentary, almost always forming a
support to a maxillary barbel. Margin of the upper jaw formed by the
intermaxillaries only. Suboperculum absent. Air-bladder generally
present, communicating with the organ of hearing by means of the
auditory ossicles. Adipose fin present or absent.
A large family, represented by numerous genera, which exhibit a
great variety of form and structure of the fins; they inhabit the fresh
waters of all the temperate and tropical regions; a few enter the sea
but keep near the coast. The first appearance of Siluroids is
indicated by some fossil remains in tertiary deposits of the highlands
of Padang in Sumatra, where Pseudeutropius and Bagarius, types
well represented in the living Indian fauna, have been found. Also in
North America spines referable to Cat-fishes have been found in
tertiary formations.
The skeleton of the typical Siluroids shows many peculiarities.
The cranial cavity is not membranous on the sides, but closed as in
the Cyprinidæ, by the orbitosphenoids and the ethmoid that unite
with the prefrontals, carrying forward the cranial cavity to the nasal
bone, without leaving a membranous septum between the orbits. But
the supraoccipital is greatly developed, and in many the post-
temporal is united by suture to the sides of the cranium. In numerous
members of the family the skull is enlarged posteriorly, by dermal
ossifications, to form a kind of helmet which spreads over the nape;
the lateral angles of this production are formed by the suprascapulæ,
augmented and fixed by suture, and the median part is the extension
of the supraoccipital, which is generally very large, is connected
anteriorly with the frontal, and passing backwards between the
postfrontals, the parietals, the mastoids, and the suprascapulæ,
goes past them all on to the nape. The mastoids interpose between
the postfrontals and the parietals, so as to come in contact with the
supraoccipital, and the parietals but little developed are pressed to
the back part of the cranium, and in some instances wholly
disappear.
The suprascapula most frequently unites to the mastoid by an
immovable suture, which includes the parietal when that bone is
present, and extends even to the supraoccipital. It gives out besides
two processes, one of them resting on the exoccipital and basi-
occipital, or wedging itself between them, and the other going to the
first vertebra; sometimes a plate from the exoccipital supports the
same vertebra. This vertebra, though it presents a pretty continuous
centrum beneath, is in reality composed of three or four coalescent
vertebræ, as we ascertain by its diapophyses, by the circular
elevations of the neural canal, and by the holes for the exit of the
pairs of spinal nerves. There is great variety in the development of
the various processes of the bones we have mentioned, and there is
no less in the magnitude and connections of the first three
interneurals.
In general in the species which have a strong dorsal spine the
second and third interneurals unite to form a single plate, the
“buckler;” the great spine is articulated to the third interneural, and
there is only the vestige of a spine on the second interneural in form
of a small oval bone, forked below, whose function is to act as a bolt
or fulcrum to the great spine when the fish wishes to use it as an
offensive weapon. The great spine itself is joined by a ring to a
second spine, which belongs to the third interneural. This articulation
by ring exists in Lophius and a few other fishes not of this family.
The first interneural does not carry a ray, and it varies much in
the species whose helmet is continuous with the buckler, as in many
of the Bagri and Pimelodi. In these cases the supraoccipital,
extending backwards, conceals the first interneural, passing over it
to touch with its point the buckler formed by the second and third
interneurals. In other instances, as in Synodontis and Auchenipterus,
the supraoccipital and second interneural, forking and expanding,
inclose and join themselves to the first interneural, but leave a larger
or smaller space in the middle of the nuchal armour which they
contribute to form. When the point of the supraoccipital does not
reach quite to the second interneural, the first interneural remains
free from connection, and occasionally shows as a narrow plate
interposed between the other two; in such a case the helmet is not
continuous with the buckler.
The neural spines of the coalescent centra, which form the
apparently single first vertebra, concur also in sustaining the nuchal
plate-armour and the first great dorsal spine. They carry the
interneurals, are joined to them by suture, and one of them is often
inclined towards the occiput to assist in sustaining the head; in fact,
this part of the skeleton is constructed to give firm mutual support.
The shoulder-girdle of the Siluroids is also formed to give
resistance to the strong weapon with which it is frequently armed.
The post-temporal, as we have said above, is often united by suture
to the cranium, and it obtains support below by one or two processes
that are fixed on the basioccipitals and on the diapophysis of the first
vertebra.
In most osseous fishes the clavicle completes the lower key of
the scapular arch in joining its fellow by suture or synchondrosis
without the intervention of the coracoid; but in the Siluroids the
coracoid descends to take part in this joint, and sometimes even to
occupy the half of the suture, which is not unfrequently constructed
of very deep interlocking serratures. The solidity of this base of the
pectoral spine is further augmented by the intimate union of the
coracoid and scapula, which often extends to junction by suture, or
even to coalescence; and these bones, moreover, give off two bony
arches—the first a slender one, arising from the salient edge of the
coracoid near the pectoral fin, and going to the interior face of the
scapular that is applied to the interior surface of the ascending
branch of the clavicle; the second and broader supplementary arch
is often perforated by a large hole; it also emanates from the same
salient edge of the radius, but proceeds in opposite direction to the
inferior edge of the clavicle, a little before the insertion of the pectoral
spine. The two arches give attachments to the muscles that move
this spine; in the Synodontes and many Bagri the upper arch
remains in a cartilaginous or ligamentous condition, while in
Malapterurus it is the lower arch that does not ossify, but both are
fully formed in the Siluri and many other Siluroids more closely allied
to that typical genus. The postclavicle is also wanting in the
Siluroids. The pterygoid and entopterygoid are reduced to a single
bone, the symplectic is wholly wanting, and the palatine is merely a
slender cylindrical bone. The sub-operculum is likewise constantly
absent in all the Siluroids.
The great number of different generic types has necessitated a
further division of this family into eight subdivisions:
I. Siluridæ Homalopteræ.—The dorsal and anal fins are very
long, nearly equal in extent to the corresponding parts of the
vertebral column.
a. Clariina.
Clarias.—Dorsal fin extending from the neck to the caudal,
without adipose division. Cleft of the mouth transverse, anterior, of
moderate width; barbels eight; one pair of nasal, one of maxillary, and
two pairs of mandibulary barbels. Eyes small. Head depressed; its
upper and lateral parts are osseous, or covered with only a very thin
skin. A dendritic accessory branchial organ is attached to the convex
side of the second and fourth branchial arches, and received in a
cavity behind the gill-cavity proper. Ventrals six-rayed; only the
pectoral has a pungent spine. Body eel-like.
Twenty species from Africa, the East Indies, and the intermediate
parts of Asia; some attain to a length of six feet. They inhabit muddy
and marshy waters; the physiological function of the accessory
branchial organ is not known. Its skeleton is formed by a soft
cartilaginous substance covered by mucous membrane, in which the
vessels are imbedded. The vessels arise from branchial arteries, and
return the blood into branchial veins. The vernacular name of the
Nilotic species is “Carmoot.”
Heterobranchus differs from Clarias only in the structure of the
dorsal fin, the posterior portion of which is adipose.
The geographical range of this genus is not quite co-extensive
with that of Clarias, inasmuch as it is limited to Africa and the East-
Indian Archipelago. Six species.
b. Plotosina.
Plotosus.—A short dorsal fin in front, with a pungent spine; a
second long dorsal coalesces with the caudal and anal. Vomerine
teeth molar-like. Barbels eight or ten; one immediately before the
posterior nostril, which is remote from the anterior, the latter being
quite in front of the snout. Cleft of the mouth transverse. Eyes small.
The gill-membranes are not confluent with the skin of the isthmus.
Ventral fins many-rayed. Head depressed; body elongate.
Fig. 258.—Mouth of Cnidoglanis
megastoma, Australia.
Three species are known from brackish waters of the Indian
Ocean freely entering the sea. Plotosus anguillaris is distinguished
by two white longitudinal bands, and is one of the most generally
distributed and common Indian fishes.—Copidoglanis and
Cnidoglanis are two very closely allied forms, chiefly from rivers and
brackish waters of Australia. None of these Siluroids attain to a
considerable size. Chaca, from the East Indies, belongs likewise to
this sub-family.