Page:An Introduction to the Study of Fishes.djvu/78

54 extremity. Both the maxillary and intermaxillary lie and move parallel to each other, being connected by a narrow membrane; in many other fishes their relative position is very different.

The mandible or lower jaw consists of a right and left ramus; their union by a ligament in front is called symphysis. Each ramus is formed of several pieces; that which, by a sigmoid concavity articulates with the quadrate, is the articulary bone (35); it sends upwards a coronoid process, to which a ligament from the maxillary and the masticatory muscles are attached; and forwards a long-pointed process, to be sheathed in the deep notch of the anterior piece. A small separate piece (36) at the lower posterior angle of the mandible is termed angular. The largest piece (34) is tooth-bearing, and hence termed dentary; at its inner surface it is always deeply excavated, to receive a cylindrical cartilage, called Meckel's cartilage, the remains of an embryonic condition of the jaw, the articulary and angular being but ossified parts of it. In other Teleostei this number is still more increased by a splenial and other bones.

The infraorbital ring of bones (Fig. 23, ) consists of several (four) pieces, of which the anterior is the largest, and distinguished as præorbital.

The so-called præoperculum (30) belongs rather to the bones of the suspensorium of the mandible, presently to be described, than to the opercles proper. It is narrow, strong, angularly bent, so as to consist of a vertical and horizontal limb, with an incompletely closed canal running along both limbs. As it is quite a superficial bone, and frequently armed with various spines, its form and configuration form an important item in the descriptive details of many fishes.

The principal piece of the gill-cover is the operculum (28), triangular in shape, situated behind, and movably united with, the vertical limb of the præoperculum. There is an