George Albert Boulenger, Albert Charles Lewis Gotthilf Günther and John Graham Kerr

“ The mass of materials brought together was so great that, not long after the death of Linnaeus, the necessity made itself felt for collecting them in a compendious form. Several compilers undertook this task; they embodied the recent discoveries in new editions of the classical works of Artedi and Linnaeus, but, they only succeeded in burying those noble monuments under a chaotic mass of rubbish. For ichthyology it was fortunate that two men at least, Bloch and Lacepède, made it a subject of prolonged original research. ”

“ Sinus venosus, (2) Atrium, (3) Ventricle. A fourth chamber, the conus arteriosus, the enlarged and contractile hinder end of the ventral aorta, is also physiologically a part of the heart. The sinus venosus receives the blood from the great veins (ductus Cuvieri and hepatic veins) . It—like the atrium which it enters by an opening guarded by two lateral valves—has thin though contractile walls. The atrium is as a rule single, but in the Dipnoans, in correlation with the importance of their pulmonary breathing, it is incompletely divided into a right and a left auricle. ”

“ A continuous median fin-fold occurs also in various Teleosts (many deep-sea Teleosts, eels, &c.) , though the highly specialized features in other respects make it probable that we have here to do with a secondary return to a condition like the primitive one. In the process of segmentation of the originally continuous fin-fold we notice first of all a separation of and an increase in size of that portion of the fin which from its position at the tip of the tail region is in the most advantageous position for producing movements of the body. There is thus formed the caudal fin. ”

“ In the original symmetrical or protocercal (=diphycercal) type of tail (as seen in a cyclostome, a Dipnoan and in most fish embryos) the skeletal axis of the body runs straight out to its tip—the tail fold being equally developed above and below the axis. In the highly developed caudal fin of the majority of fishes, however, the fin-fold is developed to a much greater extent on the ventral side, and correlated with this the skeletal axis is turned upwards as in the heterocercal tail of sharks and sturgeons. ”

“ That one man should have laid so sure a basis for future progress in zoology is less surprising than that for about eighteen centuries a science which seemed to offer particular attractions to men gifted with power of observation was no further advanced. ”

“ Organs of the Mesenchyme.—In vertebrates as in all other Metazoa, except the very lowest, there are numerous cell elements which no longer form part of the regularly arranged epithelial layers, but which take part in the formation of the packing tissue of the body. Much of this forms the various kinds of connective tissue which fill up many of the spaces between the various epithelial layers; other and very important parts of the general mesenchyme become specialized in two definite directions and give rise to two special systems of organs. ”

“ In addition to the paired limbs, median fins are usually present, consisting of dermal rays borne by endoskeletal supports, which in the more primitive forms are strikingly similar in structure to the paired fins that are assumed to have arisen from the breaking up of a lateral fold similar to the vertical folds out of which the dorsal, anal and caudal fins have been evolved. The body is naked, or scaly, or covered with bony shields or hard spines. ”

“ How greatly their distribution differs from that of terrestrial animals has long ago been emphasized. The key to their mode of dispersal is, with few exceptions, to be found in the hydrography of the continents, latitude and climate, excepting of course very great altitudes, being inconsiderable factors, the fish-fauna of a country deriving its character from the headwaters of the river-system which flows through it. ”

“ To those morphologists who regard the hemisphere region or telencephalon as a primitively unpaired structure the velum is an important landmark indicating the posterior limit of the telencephalon. Those who hold the view taken in this article that the hemispheres are to be regarded as paired outpushings of the side wall of the primitive fore-brain attribute less morphological importance to the velum. Physiologically the velum is frequently important from the plexus of blood-vessels which passes with it into the III. ventricle. ”

“ The eyes are usually of large size. The lens is large and spherical and in the case of most Teleostomes accommodation for distant vision is effected by the lens being pulled bodily nearer the retina. This movement is brought about by the contraction of smooth muscle fibres contained in the processus falciformis, a projection from the choroid which terminates in contact with the lens in a swelling, the campanula Halleri. In Amia and in Teleosts a network of capillaries forming the so-called choroid gland surrounds the optic nerve just outside the retina. ”

“ According to the views now generally adopted, all those vertebrate animals are referred to the class of fishes which combine the following characteristics: they live in water, and by means of gills or branchiae breathe air dissolved in water; the heart consists of a single ventricle and single atrium; the limbs, if present, are modified into fins, supplemented by unpaired median fins; and the skin is either naked or covered with scales or with osseous plates or bucklers. ”

“ Central Nervous System.—The neural tube shows in very early stages an anterior dilated portion which forms the rudiment of the brain in contradistinction to the hinder, narrower part which forms the spinal cord. This enlargement of the brain is correlated with the increasing predominance of the nerve centres at the anterior end of the body which tend to assume more and more complete control over those lying behind. ”

“ Behind the pharynx comes the main portion of the alimentary canal concerned with the digestion and absorption of the food. This forms a tube varying greatly in length, more elongated and coiled in the higher Teleostomes, shorter and straighter in the Selachians, Dipnoans and lower Teleostomes. The oesophagus or gullet, usually forming a short, wide tube, leads into the glandular, more or less dilated stomach. This is frequently in the form of a letter J, the longer limb being continuous with the gullet, the shorter with the intestine. ”

“ Embryology, however, shows that the swimbladder arises as a localized diverticulum. It follows that the blood-supply from a long stretch of the aorta can hardly be primitive. We should rather expect the primitive blood-supply to be from the main arteries of the pharyngeal wall, i.e. from the hinder aortic arch as is the case with the lungs of other forms. Now in Amia at least we actually find such a blood-supply, there being here a pulmonary artery corresponding with that in lung-possessing forms. ”

“ The secondary sheath is thus converted into a cylinder of cartilage. In Selachians exactly the same thing takes place, but in recent forms development goes a step further, as the cartilage cylinder becomes broken into a series of segments, known as vertebral centra. The wall of each segment becomes much thickened in the middle so that the notochord becomes constricted within each centrum and the space occupied by it is shaped like the cavity of a dice-box. When free from notochord and surrounding tissues such a cartilaginous centrum presents a deep conical cavity at each end (amphicoelous) . ”

“ Arising in the embryo as a simple caecum, the liver becomes in the adult a compact gland of very large size, usually bi-lobed in shape and lying in the front portion of the splanchnocoele. The stalk of the liver rudiment becomes drawn out into a tubular bile duct, which may become subdivided into branches, and as a rule develops on its course a pocket-like expansion, the gall-bladder. This may hang freely in the splanchnocoele or may be, as in many Selachians, imbedded in the liver substance. ”

“ The dorsal aorta, which receives its highly oxygenated blood from the aortic arches, is the main artery for the distribution of this oxygenated blood. Anteriorly the aortic roots are continued forwards as the dorsal carotid arteries to supply the head region. A series of paired, segmentally-arranged arteries pass from the dorsal aorta to supply the muscular body wall, and the branches which supply the pectoral and pelvic fins (subclavian or brachial artery, and iliac artery) are probably specially enlarged members of this series of segmental vessels. ”

“ The cerebellum occurs in its simplest form in lampreys and Dipnoans (fig. 29, C) , where it forms a simple band-like thickening of the anterior end of the roof of the hind-brain. In Selachians it is very large and bulges upwards, forming a conspicuous organ in a dorsal view of the brain (fig. 29, A) . In Teleosts (fig. 29, B) the cerebellum is also large. It projects back as a great tongue-like structure over the roof of the fourth ventricle, while in front it dips downwards and projects under the roof of the mid-brain forming a highly characteristic valvula cerebelli. ”

“ In rays and skates, which are modified in correlation with their ground feeding habit, the spiracle is a large opening which during the great widening out of the body during development comes to be situated on the dorsal side, while the branchial clefts come to be ventral in position. ”

“ It is also usual to find in the epithelial wall of the pineal organ columnar cells which show club-shaped ends projecting into the lumen (exactly as in the young visual cells of the retina [41] ) and are prolonged into a root-like process at the other end. Definite nerve fibres pass down from these parietal organs to the brain. It is stated that the fibres from the pineal organ pass into the posterior commissure, those of the parapineal organ into the habenular commissure. ”

“ In existing Crossopterygians the spiracle is a slit-like opening on the dorsal side of the head which can be opened or closed at will. In Dipneusti, as in the higher Teleostomes, the spiracle is found as an embryonic rudiment, but in this case it gives rise in the adult to a remarkable sense organ of problematical function. ”

“ The curve of the J may be as in Polypterus and the perch produced backwards into a large pocket. The intestine is usually marked off from the stomach by a ring-like sphincter muscle forming the pyloric valve. In the lower gnathostomatous fishes (Selachians, Crossopterygians, Dipnoans, sturgeons) the intestine possesses the highly characteristic spiral valve, a shelf-like projection into its lumen which pursues a spiral course, and along the turns of which the food passes during the course of digestion. ”

“ It is of great interest to note the appearance in the Dipnoans (Lepidosiren and Protopterus) of a corpus callosum (cf. fig. 30 B) lying dorsal to the anterior commissure and composed of fibres connected with the pallial region of the two hemispheres.
Sense Organs.—The olfactory organs are of special interest in the Selachians, where each remains through life as a widely-open, saccular involution of the ectoderm which may be prolonged backwards to the margin of the buccal cavity by an open oronasal groove, thus retaining a condition familiar in the embryo of the higher vertebrates. ”

“ Pelagic fishes, among which we find the largest Selachians and Teleosteans, are far less limited in their distribution, which, for many species, is nearly world-wide. Some are dependent upon currents, but the great majority being rapid swimmers able to continue their course for weeks, apparently without the necessity of rest (many sharks, scombrids, sword-fishes) , pass from one ocean into the other. Most numerous between the tropics, many of these fishes occasionally wander far north and south of their habitual range, and there are few genera that are at all limited in their distribution. ”