288 SKETCHES OF BRITISH ICHTHYOLOGY. 



SyngiintJuts, the term employed to designate tlie genus of fishes 

 which forms the type of the Tribe, or Natural Family, of the 

 Syngnathidsej is composed, also, of two Greek words ; and implies 

 an-Mwion of the jarvs."^ The propriety of this designation \yill be, 

 at once, obvious when I state that both jaws of all the species be- 

 longing to this genus and Family, are so united as to form a perfect 

 tube, or pipe, through which food and water are absorbed by the 

 animal. From this circumstance, or the pipe-like figure of the 

 body, they have acquired, in England, the popular designation 

 of Pipe-Fish. Consequently, Syngnathus may be regarded as a 

 synonym of the Pipe-fish genus ; and Syngnathidce, — of the Family 

 of the Pipe-fishes. 



The Family, Syngnathidse, contains, then, as I have before ob- 

 served, only two genera of British fishes : the Syngnathiis, or pro- 

 per Pipe-fish, genus; and the Hippocampus, \ or Sea-horse, genus. 

 The species of the latter, formerly arranged under Synguathus, 

 have, only in modem times, been separated from it, and received 

 the generic name of Hippocampus. I shall now proceed to describe, 

 in regular order, as clearly and (Concisely as the subject will allow, 

 the distinguishing characters of the two genera, and of all the 

 British species which they respectively comprehend. 



1. Syngnathus. — The following are its Generic Characters, as 

 traced by Cuvier and Yarrell : Body elongated, slender, invested 

 with a series of indurated plates arranged in ])arallel lines. Head 

 long: both jaws produced, united, tubular. No ventral fin. Re- 

 spiratory orifice situated towards the back of the neck. The fishes 

 of this genus are the Needle-fish of the vulgar English, — Aiguille 

 de mer, of the French — , Aguglia, of the Italian — , and Nadel- 

 fisch, of the German language. They admit of distribution into 

 two Sections, or Sub-genera, conspicuously distinguished from each 

 other by the number of the fins with which they are respectively 

 provided, and by the peculiar and extraordinary mode of develop- 

 ment of their young. 



A. The first sub-genus comprehends those Pipe-fishes which are 

 provided with pectoral, dorsal, anal, caudal, but not ventral, fins. 

 The male only has an elongated pouch, named sub-caudal, because 

 situated beneath the tail ; and closed by two folding membranes. 

 It includes the two following British species. 



in the process of chylification. In those cartilaginous fishes which, as the 

 Chondropteryg'd, are provided with a pancreas, the pyloric cceca are not found. 

 They exist most conspicuously in the Burbot, Gadus lota, 



• 2i(y, in composition, union, — ym6o$, the jaw. 



•j- From the Greek, 'i^Toxa^fro?, a sea-horse. 



