ICHTHYOLOGY. 



Malacop- liappened to the roiall ship of the emperor Caiits Cali- 

 teryRii gula, at what time as he rowed backe, and made saile from 

 Astura to Antium ; wlien and where this httle fish de- 

 tained his ship, and (as it fell out afterward) presaged an 

 - unfortunate event thereby : for tliis was the h»st time tliat 

 ever this emperour made his returne to Rome : and no 

 sooner was lie arrived, but liis own souldiours in a niutinie 

 I'ell upon him and stabbed liim to death. And yet it was 

 not long ere the cause of this wonderfuU staie of his ship 

 was knowne : for so soon as ever the vessel (and a galliace 

 it was, furnished with five bankes of ores to a side) was 

 perceived alone in the ileete to stand still, prescntlie a 

 number of tall fellows leapt out of their ships into the sea, 

 to search what the reason might be that it stirred not ; 

 and found one of these fishes sticking fast to the very 

 helnie : which being reported unto Caius Caligula, he 

 fumed and fared as an emperour, taking great indignation 

 that so small a thing as it should hold him back perforce, 

 and check the strength of all his mariners, notwithstand- 

 ing there were no fewer than foure hundred lustie men in 

 his galley that laboured at the ore all that ever they could 

 to the contrarie. But this prince (as it is for certain 

 knowne) was most astonied at this, namely, that the fish 

 sticking only to the ship, should hold it fast ; and the same 

 being brought into the ship and there laid, not worke the 

 like effect. They who at that time and afterward saw 

 the fish, report that it resembled for all the world a snaile 

 of the greatest making : but as touching the form and sun- 

 drie kinds thereof, many have written diversly, whose 

 opinions I have set downe in my treatise of living crea- 

 tures belonging to the waters, and namely in the particu- 

 lar discourse of this fish : neither doe I doubt but all the 

 sorte of fishes are able to doe as much : for this we are 

 to believe, tliat Pourcellans also be of the same vertue, 

 since it was well knowne by a notorious example, that one 

 of them did the like by a ship sent from Periander to the 

 Cape of Gnidos : in regard whereof, the inhabitants of 

 Gnidos doe honour and consecrat the said Porcellane with- 

 in their temples of Venus. Some of our Latin writers do 

 call the said fish that thus staieth a ship, by the name of 

 Remora." 



Anotherspecies,J5'cAe?jew7VaMcrato, Linn. (Plate CCCV. 

 fig. 10), commonly called the Indian Remora, has usually 

 twenty-two plates upon the head. In its habits it resem- 

 bles the preceding ; but it seems to be more frequent in 

 the seas of India and America, than in those of Europe. 

 The manuscripts of Commerson, as quoted by Count La- 

 cepede, inform us that it is common along the coasts of 

 Mosambique, where it is made use of in a singular way fiar 

 the purpose of catching turtles. A ring is first fastened 

 round its tail, and then a long cord is attached to the ring. 

 When thus accoutred, tlie fish, placed in a vessel of sea- 

 water, is carried out in a boat ; and as soon as the fisher- 

 men perceive a sleeping turtle, they row gently towards it, 

 and throw the remora into the water, with a sufficient 

 length of cord. It seldom fails speedily to attach itself to 

 the unconscious turtle, which by the tenacity of its ad- 

 herence is immediately drawn towards the boat and cap- 

 tured. 



A third species of remora is described by Mr Archi- 

 bald Menzies as an inhabitant of the Pacific Ocean.' He 

 has named it Ech. lineata. It is distinguished by having 

 only ten transverse plates to its sucker. Mr Menzies 

 found it adhering to a turtle. A fourth species (and these 

 are all with which we are acquainted) has been more re- 

 cently discovered by Baron Cuvier. The rays of its pec- 

 toral fins are bony, compressed, and terminated by a slight- 

 ly notched /;a/toe. He names it Eeheneis osteochir? 



ORDER IV.— MALACOPTERYGII APODES 



which may be considered as constituting a single natural 

 family, the 



223 



MaUcop- 



terygii 



Apode*. 



Angiiilli- 



tbrme8. 



ANGUILLIFORMES, 



or fishes with an elongated shape; a thick skin, on which 

 scales are in general but indistinctly visible; and without 

 cteca to their intestines. Almost all are provided with a 

 swimming bladder, which often assumes a remarkable form. 



The ancient unrestricted Genus Mur^ena of Linnae- 

 us is distinguished by the snake-like form of the body ; 

 the small opercles covering concentric branchiostegous 

 rays, buried in the skin, and only opening posteriorly by 

 a sort of tubular orifice. This structure, by giving a 

 more perfect command over the closure of the gills, ena- 

 bles them to remain longer out of water without injury 

 than the generality of fishes. They have scarcely-per- 

 ceptible scales, which are concealed in a tough skin, co- 

 vered with a slippery mucus. They all are destitute of 

 ventral fins and ca;ca, and have the anus placed very far 

 behind. Numerous subdivisions of the old genus Murmna 

 have taken place in modern times. We shall here note 

 the following: 



Genus Anguilla, Thunbergand Shaw. Eels in gene- 

 ral, as distinguished from Muranue, are characterised by 

 the possession of pectoral fins, under which the branchial 

 aperture opens ; their swimming bladder has an elongated 

 shape, and near its middle a peculiar glandular body ; 

 their stomach has a long cul-de-sac ; their intestine is al- 

 most straight. 



The more restricted genus Anguilla, or eel properly 

 so called, has the dorsal and caudal fins continued around 

 the tail, giving it a pointed form. 



In the true eels, the dorsal begins a considerable dis- 

 tance behind the pectorals. Some have the upper jaw 

 shorter than the lower ; such as the Anguilla vulgaris, or 

 common eel. (Plate CCCVI. fig. 1.) This fish is uni- 

 versally distributed, and scarcely requires description. 

 The usual colour is an olive tint above, and a silvery co- 

 lour below ; but in some instances the back is spotted with 

 brown. We have observed these fish in considerable num- 

 bers leaving fresh-water lakes in the night time, and fre- 

 quenting meadows, seemingly for the purpose of preying 

 on slugs and snails. They easily move on the land, with a 

 motion resembling that of snakes. The eel grows to the 

 size of two or three feet, and is sometimes said to reach 

 five or six feet in length. It abounds in many European 

 rivers. Eels are caught in immense numbers in the rivers 

 emptying themselves into the Baltic ; and they form a con- 

 siderable article of trade. Two thousand are stated to 

 have been caught at one sweep in Jutland ; and in the 

 Garonne 60,000 were taken in one day by a single net. 



" That eels migrate towards brackish water," observes 

 Mr Jesse, " in order to deposit their roe, I have but 

 little doubt, for the following reasons. From the month 

 of November until the end of January, provided the frost 

 is not very serious, eels migrate towards the sea. The 

 Thames fishermen are so aware of this fact, that they 

 invariably set their pots or baskets with their mouths 

 up stream during those months, while later in the spring 

 and summer they are set down stream. The best time, 

 however, for taking eels, is during their passage towards 

 the sea. The eel-traps, also, which are set in three dif- 

 ferent streams near Hampton Court (the contents of 

 which, at different times, I have had opportunities of ex- 



Linn. Tram. vol. i. p. 1S7, pi. xvii. 



' Rigm Animal, t. ii. p._348. 



