256 ^ PISCES. 



vomer is furnished with a band of teeth like those of a card, and its 

 whole surface, which is wide, as well as the tongue, is asperous. 

 Thev have eight branchiostegal rays; their stomach is a wide cul- 

 de-sac; they have six or eight cseca, but no natatory bladder; their 

 intestine is ample but short. 



The species are not numerous; the most common one that 

 inhabits the Mediterranean, Echen. remora, L.; Bl., 172, well \ 

 known by the name of Remora, is the shortest, and has but 

 eighteen laminse in its disk. Another and longer species, 

 Ech.naucratus^ L.; Bl., 171, has twenty-two; and the third, the 

 longest of all, Ech. lineata, Schn., Linn. Trans, pi. 17, has but ^ 



ten. 



We have discovered a species, Ech. osteochh\ Nob., whose 

 pectoral rays are osseous, compressed, and terminated by a 

 slightly 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 which 

 almost renders its scales invisible, and but few bones. They 

 have no cseca, but nearly all of them possess natatory bladders 

 which frequently assume the most singular shapes. The great 

 genus 



MuR^NA, Lin., 



Is recognized by the little opercula concentrically surrounded by the 

 rays, ail of which are enveloped in the skin, which only opens at a 

 considerable distance back by a hole or species of tube, an arrange- 

 ment which, by more completely protecting the branchiae, allows these 



