_Sphyræna sphyræna_ is the spet, or sennet, a rather small barracuda common in southern Europe. _Sphyræna borealis_ of our eastern coast is a similar but still feebler species rarely exceeding a foot in length. These and other small species are feeble folk as compared with the great barracuda (_Sphyræna barracuda_) of the West Indies, a robust savage fish, also known as picuda or becuna. _Sphyræna commersoni_ of Polynesia is a similar large species, while numerous lesser ones occur through the tropical seas. On the California coast _Sphyræna argentea_ is an excellent food-fish, slenderer than the great barracuda but reaching a length of five feet. Several species of fossil barracuda occur in the Italian Eocene, _Sphyræna bolcensis_ being the earliest. =Stephanoberycidæ.=—We may append to the _Percesoces_, for want of a better place, a small family of the deep sea, its affinities at present unknown. The _Stephanoberycidæ_ have the ventrals I, 5, subabdominal, a single dorsal without spine, and the scales cycloid, scarcely imbricated, each with one or two central spines. The mouth is large, with small teeth, the skull cavernous, as in the berycoids, from which group the normally formed ventrals abdominal in position would seem to exclude it. _Stephanoberyx monæ_ and _S. gilli_ are found at the depth of a mile and a half below the Gulf Stream. Boulenger first placed them with the _Percesoces_, but more recently suggests their relationship with the _Haplomi_. Perhaps, as supposed by Gill, they may prove to be degenerate berycoids in which the ventral fins have lost their normal connection. =Crossognathidæ.=—A peculiar primitive group referred by Woodward to the _Percesoces_ is the family of _Crossognathidæ_ of the Cretaceous period. As in these fishes there are no fin-spines, they may be perhaps better placed with the _Haplomi_. The dorsal fin is long, without distinct spines, and the abdominal ventrals have six to eight rays. The mouth is small, with feeble teeth, and the body is elongate and compressed. _Crossognathus sabandianum_ occurs in the Cretaceous of Switzerland and Germany, _Syllæmus latifrons_ and other species in the Colorado Cretaceous, and _Syllæmus anglicus_ in England. The _Crossognathidæ_ have probably the lower pharyngeals separate, else they would be placed among the _Synentognathi_, a group attached by Woodward, not without reason, to the _Percesoces_. =Cobitopsidæ.=—Near the _Crossognathidæ_ may be placed the extinct _Cobitopsidæ_, _Cobitopsis acuta_ being recorded from the Oligocene of Puy-de-Dôme in France. In this species there is a short dorsal fin of about seventeen rays, no teeth, and the well-developed ventral fins are not far in front of the anal. This little fish bears a strong resemblance to _Ammodytes_, but the affinities of the latter genus are certainly with the ophidioid fishes, while the real relationship of _Cobitopsis_ is uncertain. [Illustration: