368 ANACANTHINI. 



access to many Greenland examples of the fish, and a cursory 

 examination is sufficient to show that it has neither the coales- 

 cent parts of the nasal vertebra, which is one characteristic of the 

 eels, nor their peculiar branchiostegous rays. In very many par- 

 ticulars of its structure Gymnelis approaches closely to Ly codes 

 or Zoarces, but the German naturalists place it in Midler's 

 order of Anacanthini. In the works above quoted Professor 

 Reinhardt promises to give, in a future communication, a de- 

 tailed account of the genus and species; but if he has executed 

 his design, I have not been able to find the work in our Lon- 

 don libraries. In the absence of such details and of authentic 

 examples of the Greenland fish for comparison, I cannot be 

 certain of the specific identity of Sir Edward Belcher's speci- 

 men, and there is some doubt even as to the number of its fin- 

 rays. These cannot be accurately counted through the thick 

 integument, and I designed to make a skeleton of the speci- 

 men after it had been drawn ; but though the external form of 

 the fish was well preserved by immersion in spirits, the thick 

 mucus which covers the skin had prevented the fluid from ar- 

 resting the progress of decay in the interior ; whence it fol- 

 lowed, that after a brief maceration in water, the whole fell to 

 pieces and the rays split up, so that an accurate enumeration 

 was impossible. The numbers of those in the three vertical 

 fins are however a pretty close approximation. Reinhardt 

 reckons ninety-seven in the dorsal to the point of the tail, and 

 seventy-one in the anal, the rays of the caudal being divided 

 between these numbers, which added together make 168, or 

 four more than I was able to reckon in Sir Edward Belcher's 

 specimen. 



The Ophidium Parrii of Sir James Ross must be very unlike 

 viride, in having a much larger head, whose length is equal to 

 one-third of that of the body, and in the great size of the pec- 

 toral fins, which when spread out extend beyond the vent and 

 completely cover the whole of the belly and throat. The ver- 

 tical fins also have much fewer rays, being only fifty on the 

 dorsal side to the point of the tail, and forty-five on the anal 

 side. Indeed the dissimilarity is enough to raise a doubt even 



