read before the Royal Society, in 1774,(1) he observes that the teeth
of fishes which subsist chiefly on animal matter must vary according as
their food may be common soft fish or shell-fish. “ Such fish as live
on the first kind have, like the carnivorous quadrupeds and birds, no
apparatus for mastication, their teeth being intended merely for catching
the food and fitting it to be swallowed. But the shells of the second
kind of food render some degree of masticatory power necessary to fit it
for its passage either into the stomach or through the intestines ; and
accordingly we find in certain fish a structure suited to the purpose.
Thus the mouth of the wolf-fish is almost paved with teeth, by means
of which it can break shells to pieces, and fit them for the oesophagus
of the fish, and so effectually disengage the food from them, that
though it lives upon such hard food, the stomach does not differ
from that of other fish.”
But in order to secure the capture of the shell-fish, the teeth of
the wolf-fish are not all crushers ; some present the laniary type,
with the apices more or less recurved and blunted by use, and consist
of strong cones spread abroad, like grappling hooks, at the anterior
part of the mouth. A description of these teeth, illustrated with figures,
is given by Mr. André in a volume of the Philosophical Transactions
(2) subsequent to that in which they are noticed by Hunter ;
and a diminished view of the mouth of the Wolf-fish will be found in
Mr. Yarrell’s British Fishes.(3)
The oral dentigerous bones, viz : the intermaxillaries, preman-
dibulars, palatines and vomer, are figured of their natural size, in
their natural relative position and separately, in Plates 60 & 61 of
the present work. The pharyngeal bones support much smaller
conical and pointed teeth.
The intermaxillary teeth, (PI. 60, fig. 1, and PL 61, fig. 2 ad)
are all conical, and arranged in two rows ; there are two, three or
four in the ëxterior row, at the mesial half of the bone, which are
the largest ; and from six to eight much smaller teeth are irregularly
arranged behind. There are three large, strong, diverging laniaries
at the anterior end of each premandibular bone, (PI. 61, fig. 1), and
immediately behind these an irregular number of shorter and smaller
(1) Philos. Trans, vol. briv, p. 310. (2) lb. vol. lxxiv, p. 2?4, (3) Vol. 1, p. 248.
conical teeth which gradually exchange this form for that of large
obtuse tubercles ; these extend backwards, in a double alternate series,
along a great part of the alveolar border of the bone, and are terminated
by two or three smaller teeth in a single row, the last of
which again presents the conical form. Each palatine bone,
(PI. 61, fig. 2, b b) supports a double row of teeth ; the outer ones
being conical and straight, and from four to six in number ; the inner
ones, two, three or four in number and tuberculate. I have seen a
specimen where the inner row was wanting on one side. The lower
surface of the vomer, c, is covered by a double irregularly alternate
series of the same kind of large tuberculate crushing teeth as
those at the middle of the premandibulars. All the teeth are anchy-
losed to more or less developed alveolar eminences, like the anterior
teeth of the Lophius. The periphery of the expanded circular base
of the large anterior grappling teeth is divided into processes indicative
of the original ligamentous fasciculi at the base of the pulp
by the ossification of which their anchylosis is effected. (1)
When such anchylosed teeth and the supporting bone are
divided by a vertical section, as in PI. 60, fig. 2, there may be generally
discerned a faint transverse line indicating the original separation
between the tooth and the bone, and more clearly defining the dental
from the osseous structure than in the anchylosed teeth of other
fishes. From the enormous development of the muscles of the jaws,
and the strength of the shells of the whelks and other testacea which
are cracked and crushed by the teeth, their fracture and displacement
must obviously be no infrequent occurrence, and most specimens of
the jaws of the wolf-fish exhibit some of the teeth either separated at
this line of imperfect anchylosis, or, more rarely, broken off above
the base, or, still more rarely, detached by fracture of the supporting
osseous alveolar process.
Cuvier(2) describes the basal portion of the teeth themselves
as osseous epiphyses, attached by a kind of suture to the jaw,
and forming the medium by which the true teeth are fixed to
(1) Cuvier has given an accurate view of the plaited structure of the base of one of these teeth
in PI. 32, fig. 7, ofhis Leçons d’Anatomie Comparée, 1805, where it is described as the base
of the osseous tubercle which supports the true tooth.
(2) lb. tom. iii, p. 113.