32 



ness of the orifice of the mouth. The upper lip has an 

 additional barbel, and the lower one is greatly developed. 

 The collection contains but one specimen, which was 

 procured at Sidney, the most southern locality that has 

 been named for a Siluroid fish. This individual appears 

 to have been injured on the end of the tail during life, 

 as the last vertebrae are anchylosed, uneven and not sym- 

 metrical. The ordinary form of the tail may, therefore, be 

 difl'erent from our figure, and most probably more pointed. 

 The proportionally large head constitutes a fourth part 

 of the total length of the fish. Its breadth is one quarter 

 less, and does not quite equal twice its height. It is flat 

 above, with a wide snout, and its profile does not descend 

 much below the level of the back. The eyes are rather 

 nearer to the end of the snout than to the gill-opening, 

 and the distance between them is nearly equal to that 

 between the orbits and posterior nostrils. The mouth is 

 very wide, the gape being enlarged at the sides by a fold 

 of thick dilatable skin. The under lip is broad, has a free 

 posterior four-lobed edge between the interior submaxillary 

 barbels, and is studded on its inner surface by rows of 

 minute, soft, brown, fringed eminences. The upper lip is 

 minutely crenated on the edge, and there is a row 

 of the same brown papilla3 round the front of the roof of 

 the mouth, before the vomerine teeth. These are probably 

 organs of touch, as they are too small to be of service in 

 retaining the food. 



The somewhat conical but obtuse intermaxillary teeth 

 are disposed in two small patches, not very precise in out- 

 line, being oval on one side of the symphysis and quadran- 

 gular on the other. The patches of teeth on the lower 

 jaw are much larger, and of a triangular form, and the 

 leeth of the outer row only have the form of the upper 

 ones, the rest being closely set, flat and round, in fact 

 pavement-like. The vomerine teeth are wholly of this 

 pavement form, and constitute a pretty large heart-shaped 

 patch, with the apex in front. The much smaller, cylin- 

 drical, and blunt pharyngeal teeth stand in three rows 

 above and below, presenting a narrow dental surface. The 

 interior rakers are subulate, but with obtuse tips, and the 

 others are soft crenated ridges lying across the arches. 



The nasal barbel reaches just past the eye. One nos- 

 tril is pierced close behind its base, the other is some 

 way before it on the extreme edge of the lip. The maxil- 

 lary barbel is slightly shorter, and beneath it is a still 

 shorter one, springing from near the corner of the mouth, 

 above the jjale, pendant fold of the lip; making, with the 

 four submaxillary barbels, ten in all. 



The integuments of the head, body and fins arc soft, 

 smooth, and lax. A cluster of pores exists on the top of 

 the head posteriorly ; there is another on each supra-sca- 

 pular region, and a few solitary pores may be detected 

 elsewhere. The lateral line is extremely indistinct. A 

 round hole, opening through the integuments and fascia, 

 exists in the upper angle of the axilla of each pectoral fin. 

 It leads to a sac of some size, spreading towards the 

 interparietal bone, the hollow of the humeral chain, and 

 also posteriorly ; but there appears to be no communica- 

 tion with the gills, or any interior cavity, such as exists in 

 some other Siluroids. The conical genital papilla over- 

 tops the cauliflower-looking appendage behind it. The 



latter rises by a slender stem, forming a deep pit, and 

 spreads out, dividing midway into many blunt processes, 

 which give it the cauliflower form. A small frsenura runs 

 from the base of the genital papilla to the root of the ap- 

 pendage, and a minute pore was observed on the posterior 

 surface of the papilla, but I could not detect the orifice in 

 front. 



The first dorsal is less lofty and tapering than in the 

 other species, and is connected to the second by a loose 

 fold of skin. Its spine, and that of the pectoral fin, are 

 serrated, as usual, but they are enveloped and completely 

 concealed by thick integument. 



The fish, as preserved in spirits, has a dark brown 

 colour, with very faint, indications of small spots on the 

 body and fins. 



On opening the belly, two lobes only of the liver are 

 seen at the upper part of the cavity, with the fundus of a 

 large gall-bladder projecting from beneath an undulation 

 of the right lobe, which may be considered as a lobiiliis 

 Spigelu. On moving the intestine, however, a long nar- 

 row process of the right lobe is discovered running down 

 the side of the cavity nearly to the pelvis. When the liver is 

 raised, two large lobes are withdrawn through an oval open- 

 ing, from a cavity on each side of the large first vertebra. 

 This cavity is lined by a process of the peritoneum, and 

 the sides of the opening leading to it are strengthened by 

 an almost tendinous thickening of the peritoneum. The 

 septum or diaphragm, which separates the thorax from the 

 belly, is unusually strong, with a shining tendinous lustre. 

 The liver is attached to it by a coronary membrane, which 

 is pierced in the centre by a large vessel, leading to the 

 heart. Besides the four principal lobes, which form, as it 

 were, the corners of the liver, there is a smaller lobe on its 

 under surface, above its middle, and there are several small 

 projections from the circumference of the visciis. The 

 left lower lobe is tapering, pointed, but is not so long as 

 the right one. The liver is wholly dotted by minute black 

 points. The gall-bladder is more than an inch and a half 

 long in our specimen. 



The intestinal canal runs from the oesophagus to the 

 anus, without much change of caliber, and without caeca, 

 or stomachal dilatation. On entering the cavity of the 

 belly, the gut is rather on the left side of the spine, but 

 it crosses over to the right directly, and in its course to the 

 vent being thickly puckered on the margin of a strong 

 mesentery. The lower half of the gut is regularly speckled 

 on its peritoneal surface with minute black dots, and within 

 an inch and a half of the anus the coats of the gut are 

 thickened, and it acquires a dark colour internally. 



When the intestines are removed, two long, narrow, un- 

 divided bodies {testes) are seen lying along the spine in 

 the peritoneum, and between them, near the anus, is the 

 urinary bladder. The peritoneum seemed to cover a cavity 

 in our specimen, and on raising it, much brown decayed 

 matter was observed, the remains evidently of the broken 

 down kidneys, mixed with fragments of a very thick glis- 

 tening membrane, rcseuibling patches of asbestos. This 

 must have been the broken capsule of the air-bladder. 

 The air-bladder itself was entire, but collapsed, and being 

 examined under water, was found to be composed of four 

 large lobes, two of which lay in the hollows of the first 



