1 1 i rATAI.OGUE OF FISH. 



Murana. A bone, which may be considered as the confluent 

 pterygoid and entopterygoid, and wliicli does not exist in Murana, 

 has the shape of a long plate, forming the floor of the orbit. Its 

 anterior end joins the prefrontal process of the vomer underneath 

 the groove, for lodging the olfactory nerve, and its posterior end is 

 partly confluent with the hypotympanic, partly joined to it by suture. 

 The palatine, as in Murmia, performs the ordinary function of the 

 maxillary bone, but it is shorter and stronger than in that genus, 

 and is articulated by a flat head to the side of the vomer and hinder 

 part of the small nasal disk, at the fore part of the olfactory sac, 

 close to the end of the snout, the prominent tip of the snout being 

 formed by the nasal disk or chevron. In Muraiia, the articulation 

 of the end of the palatine with the preorbital process of the con- 

 fluent vomerine and nasal bones is just at the border of the orbit. 

 In the common Conger, the large triangular preorbitar flanks the 

 end of the snout, covering the anterior third of the palatine. The 

 rest of the suborbitar chain remains in the condition of a carti- 

 laginous tube, except a short piece at the posterior inferior angle of 

 the orbit, which is ossified. The integuments of the side of the 

 snout, and part of the upper lip, are strengthened by a tough liga- 

 mentous substance, approaching to cartilage in firmness. The 

 Congriis mystax is described by Laroche as having two trans- 

 verse bony rays in the upper lip of each side, but I cannot help 

 suspecting that he alludes to the preorbitar and the posterior ossified 

 portion of the suborbitar chain. In Congrus commiuns, the uro-hyal 

 is a strong bone, nearly cylindrical in the middle, dilated anteriorly, 

 where it is attached to the basi-hyals, which are confluent with the 

 fitout cerato-hyals, and compressed posteriorly at its connection with 

 the lower points of the firm, well-developed coracoid bones. The 

 gill-rays, nine in number, are also strong and rigid, except towards 

 their poiiits, and all the parts of the hyoid bone and humeral arcli 

 are much firmer and stronger than in Murana or Opliisunts. 



The stomach is a long, thick, cylindrical sac, with a short, narrow, 

 slightly-tapering, obtuse, coecal process at its fundus. The pyloric 

 orifice is near the top, leaving eleven parts of twelve in the length 

 ■of the viscus beneath it, and the canal passes obliquely through the 

 coats of the stomach, ascending till it reaches externally the junc- 

 tion of the oesophagus ; it then makes a sudden turn, and runs 

 ■downwards along the back of the stomach, a valve being formed at 

 the curve by an inflection of the inner coat of the gut. At the 

 lower quarter of the stomach, the gut, still tied down to it by a 

 short mesentery, makes three loops, which, together with five or 

 six valvular inflections of the inner coat at the several curves, per- 

 form in some degree the functions of a spiral valve, by detaining 

 the alimentary matters in their passage, and giving increased surface 

 for absorption. The guts ends in a short, straight, and rather wider 

 canal, which arrives at the anus very soon after passing the ccBcal 

 point of the stomach. 



The end of the snout is formed by the rounded extremity of the 



