132 BEAHT>KT> OPHIDITJM. 



The usual length of this fish is eight or nine inches, and 

 in shape it may be compared with the Eel or Conger, but that 

 it is stouter in comparison with its length, and also more 

 compressed; the form becoming more slender towards the tail. 

 The body is clothed with small scales of an oblong form, which 

 do not overlap each other. The jaws are equal, and the angle 

 of the mouth a little depressed; gape wide; rows of fine teeth 

 in the jaws, and some in the palate; eye large; lateral line 

 straight. The single dorsal fin, with one hundred and forty 

 rays, or as Kisso says, one hundred and twenty, begins over 

 the pectoral and runs to the end of the body, where it becomes 

 united to the anal forming the tail. Under the throat, and 

 attached to the hyoid bone, is what is strictly a pair of barbies, 

 which, in an example that measured eight inches, were an inch 

 in length; but not far from their origin they are divided into 

 two unequal branches; and this has led to their being often 

 described as four in number. The colour of this fish is variously 

 described, but a prevailing tint on the back is blue; silvery 

 on the sides and belly, sprinkled on the sides with dots. The 

 dorsal and anal fins are narrow and grey with a dark edge. 



We have remarked that it is probable this Bearded Ophidium 

 has been confounded with another, which much resembles it, 

 and which stands in the Catalogue of the British Museum as 

 Ophidium Irroussonetii, in honour of a gentleman who wrote a 

 paper on the subject, which is contained in the "Transactions 

 of the Eoyal Society" for 1781; but it differs in having "only 

 four gill rakers on the lower branch of the outer branchial 

 arch," whereas 0. barbatum is furnished with five or six. There 

 is also a different form of the air-bladder; an organ the form 

 of which offers specifically distinctive marks in this genus as 

 in many others; and of which, therefore, a figure is given by 



Willoughby as it is found in the Bearded Ophidium. In 

 Broussonet's Ophidium this organ is ovate, without a contracted 

 part; and there is no separate bone which fits into the anterior 

 portion of this air bladder. This species is a native of the 

 Mediterranean. 



