As to the causes which may have determined the shape and mutual relations of scales interesting suggestions have been made.[164] Scales bear a segmental relation to the subjacent muscle-segments or myotomes, sometimes being disposed in oblique transverse rows coinciding with the latter, or the rows may be so far increased as to be multiples of the myotomes. From mechanical considerations depending on the sigmoid shape and interdigitating relations of the myotomes and their separating fibrous septa or myocommata, and the attachment of the myocommata to the dermis, the contraction of the myotomes during the lateral flexions of the trunk in swimming has a tendency to wrinkle the skin into definitely circumscribed rhombic areas, thus determining the shape, limits, and disposition of the scales which are developed in those areas. The rhombic was probably the primitive shape of scales, and is certainly characteristic of the palaeontologically older types of scaly Fishes. Generally the rhombic condition is associated with a peg-and-socket articulation between the upper and lower margins of adjacent scales. But a rhombic squamation is not without {187}disadvantages, and would certainly impose some restriction on the lateral flexures of the body in swimming, and hence in the different groups of Fishes it may happen that, in the more specialised forms, an imbricated cycloid squamation supersedes a rhombic condition, and with the change the Fish acquires greater lateral mobility. Even in the same Fish the gradual substitution of the cycloid for the rhombic type may be observed. In the Australian _Aetheolepis_,[165] a fossil genus related to the European Liassic _Dapedius_, there is a gradual transition along the sides of the body between the articulated rhombic scales of the relatively immobile trunk and the cycloid overlapping scales of the flexible tail; and it may be mentioned that, even where a typical rhombic squamation exists, the peg-and-socket articulation may be wanting in the caudal region, so as to ensure greater freedom of movement. Mechanical considerations may also explain the overlapping of cycloid scales. From the mode of attachment of the myocommata to the dermis, the contractions of the myotomes, through the pull which they exert on the former, tend to deflect or depress the scale-areas, particularly at their anterior margins. [Illustration: FIG. 102.—_Acipenser ruthenus_. A, Side view of the trunk of a specimen 30 cm. in length (nat. size); _d_, dorsal row of plates; _l_, _l′_, lateral rows; between the rows of large scutes may be seen the numerous small denticles which are represented (× 10) in B; C, one of the large scutes (× 10). (From Hertwig.)]