174 



ACANTHOPTERYGII. LOPHIAD^. 



^^^^^=^1 



ANTENNARIUS. 



"fishes," as Professor Owen observes, ** perish 

 when taken out of water, chiefly by the cohesion 

 and desiccation of their fine vascular branchial 

 processes, through which the blood is thereby 

 prevented from passing."* Some fishes, as the 

 Mackerel and Herring, are dead almost in an 

 instant after exposure to the air ; others, as the 

 Eel and Flat-fishes, survive a long time : in the 

 former, the gill-openings are enormously large, 

 in the latter, they are very small. " The power 

 of existing long out of v^ater depends chiefly on 

 mechanical modifications for detaining a quantity 

 of that element in the branchial sacs," and this 

 is readily effected when the gill-aperture is small, 

 for, " if sufficient water can be retained to keep 

 the gill-plates floating, the oxygen which is con- 

 sumed by the capillary branchial circulation is 



* Lectures on Comp. Anat. ii. 260. 



