Neochanna is an ally of Galaxias living in burrows in the clay or mud like a crayfish, often at a distance from water. As in various other mud-living types, the ventral fins are obsolete.
Order Xenomi.—We must place near the Haplomi the singular group of Xenomi (ξενός, strange; ὤμος, shoulder), regarded by Dr. Gill as a distinct order. Externally these fish much resemble the mud-minnows, differing mainly in the very broad pectorals. But the skeleton is thin and papery, the two coracoids forming a single cartilaginous plate imperfectly divided. The pectorals are attached directly to this without the intervention of actinosts, but in the distal third, according to Dr. Charles H. Gilbert, the coracoid plate begins to break up into a fringe of narrow cartilaginous strips. These about equal the very large number (33 to 36) of pectoral rays, the basal part of each ray being slightly forked to receive the tip of the cartilaginous strip.
Fig. 164.—Alaska Blackfish, Dallia pectoralis (Bean). St. Michaels, Alaska.
"In the deep-sea eels of the order Heteromi there is a somewhat similar condition of the coracoid elements inasmuch as the hypercoracoid and hypocoracoid though present are merely membranous elements surrounded by cartilage and the actinosts are greatly reduced. It seems probable that we are dealing in the two cases with independent degeneration of the shoulder-girdle and that the two groups (Xenomi and Heteromi) are not really related." (Gilbert.)
Of the single family Dalliidæ, one species is known, the Alaska blackfish, Dallia pectoralis.
This animal, formed like a mud-minnow, reaches a length of eight inches and swarms in the bogs and sphagnum swamps of northwestern Alaska and westward through Siberia. It is found in countless numbers according to its discoverer, Mr. L. M. Turner, "wherever there is water enough to wet the skin of a fish," and wherever it occurs it forms the chief food of the natives. Its vitality is most extraordinary. Blackfishes will remain frozen in baskets for weeks and when thawed out are as lively as ever. Turner gives an account of a frozen individual swallowed by a dog which escaped in safety after being thawed out by the heat of the dog's stomach.
CHAPTER XI
ACANTHOPTERYGII; SYNENTOGNATHI
Order Acanthopterygii, the Spiny-rayed Fishes.—The most of the remaining bony fishes constitute a natural group for which the name Acanthopterygii (ἄκανθα, spine; πτερύξ, πτερόν, fin or wing) may be used. This name is often written Actinopteri, a form equally correct and more euphonious and convenient. These fishes are characterized, with numerous exceptions, by the presence of fin spines, by the connection of the ventral fins with the shoulder-girdle, by the presence in general of more than one spine in the anterior part of dorsal and anal fins, and as a rule of one spine and five rays in the ventral fins, and by the absence in the adult of a duct to the air-bladder. Minor characters are these: the pectoral fins are inserted high on the shoulder-girdle, the scales are often ctenoid, and the edge of the upper jaw is formed by the premaxillary alone, the maxillary being always toothless.