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Show 256 PISCES. vomer is furnished with a band of teeth like those of a c.ard, and its h 1 l·face which is wide, as well as the tongue, 1s asperous w o e su ' . . . · They have eight branchiostegal rays; the1r stomach 1s a wide cut. de·sac; they have six or eight c::eca, but no natatory bladder; their intestine is ample but short. The species are not numerous; the most common one that inhabits the Mediterranean, Eehen. remora, L.; Bl., 172, well known by the name of Remora, is the shortest, and has but eighteen lamin::e in its disk. Another and longer ~pecies, Eeh. naueratus, L.; Bl., 171, has twenty-two; and the thu·d, the longest of all, Eeh. lineata, Schn., Linn. Trans. pl. 17, has but ten. We have discovered a species, Eeh. osteoehir, Nob., whose pectoral rays are osseous, com pressed, and terminated by a slig·htly crenated palette. ORDER IV. MALACOPTERYGII APODES. This order may be considered as forming but a single na· tural family, that of the ANGUILLIFORMES. Fishes with an elongated form, a thick and soft skin whicn almost renders its scales invisible, and but few bones. Thef have no creca, but nearly all of them possess natatory bladde~ which frequently ~ssume the most singular shapes. The great genus MuRJENA, Lin., Is recognized by the little opercula concentrically surrounded bythe ravs, ail of which are enveloped in the skin, which only opens at• co~siderable distance back by a hole or species of tube, an arrangement which, by more completely protecting the branchire,allows MALACOPTERYGII APODES. 257 fishes to remain some time out of water without perishing. Their body is long and slender; their scales, as if encrusted in a fat and thick skin, are only distinctly visible after desiccation; they have neither ventrals nor c::eca, and their anus is placed far back. This genus has been successively separated into five or six genera which we are compelled to subdivide still more.(l) ' ANGUILLA, Thunb. and Shaw.-MURlEN'A, Bl. Eels are distinguished by the two-fold character of pectoral fins and of branchire opening under them on each side. Their stomach is a long cul-d~-sac; t?eir intestine straight, and their elongated natatory bladder IS furmshed near the middle with a peculiar gland. ANGUILLA, Cuv.-MuRlENA, Lacep. The dorsal and caudal evidently continued round the end of the tail, forming by their union a pointed caudal. In the true Eels the dorsal commences at a considerable distance behind the pectorals. In some, the upper jaw is the shortest. The common Eels belong to this division. The French fishermen admit of four kinds, which they pretend constitute as many species but which are confounded by authors under the name of Muram~ anguilla, L.; they are the .!lng. verr;tiaux, which is, I think, the most common; the .!lng. long bee, whose snout is more pointed and compressed; the Jlng. plat bee, or the Grig-eel, whose snout is more flattened and obtuse, and eye smaller; and the .!lng. pimperneaux, or the Glut-eel, where the snout is shorter in proportion, and the eye large1·. ( 2) In others the upper jaw i's longest.(3) CoNGER, Cuv. The dorsal commencing close to the pectorals, or even on them; the uppe1· jaw longest in all the known species. . (1) In none of these fishes, to our knowledge, are the opercula or rays wantmg, ~ some authors have thought. The common Murmna has seven rays on ~ach Side; the Mur. colubrina has twenty-five. These rays are even very strong m Synbrancltus, where the operculum is also complete, and formed of all its us~al portions. N.B. The Ecuuus, Hafin., Nov. Gen., p. 63, pl. xv, 1, 3, pl. 1~1• f. 2 and 3, would be of two kinds, the first Eels, and the other Congers, Without branchial opercula-but we doubt the truth of' this character. (2) We will give a comparative description of them, with exact figures, in our Icthyology. (3) Mur. longicollis, Cuv.-Lacep., II, iii, 3, under the false name of Murama m!/I'U8. Vot. II.-2 II \ |