ANGUILL1DJ3. 47 



true AnguillcB possess ; but its dorsal, commencing rather nearer to 

 the gill-opening than to the anus, excites a doubt as to whether it 

 ought not to be classed with the Congers, which are artificially sepa- 

 rated from the Ant/nilla; by the more anterior commencement of 

 the dorsal. In the nature of the dentition, labrosa is allied to 

 AncjuiUa brerirostris of McClelland (Calc. Journ. t. 5, f. 1), but the 

 forms of the dental plates are not precisely the same. 



The skin is clothed throughout, except on the lips, with narrow 

 oblong scales, which taper considerably at one end ; but are not 

 absolutely acute. When examined with a microscope, their edges 

 are perceived to be quite entire, and their whole disks to be densely 

 studded with oval and rounded cells. In situ the scales are 

 ranged in short rows, which meet each other nearly at right angles, 

 and, being covered with a darker pigment than the dusky brown 

 integument, are very conspicuous, giving a tessellated or interwoven 

 appearance to the surface of the skin. The scales cover the fins, 

 as well as the body and head. The head is depressed, flatly 

 rounded on the top, and wider at the gill-openings than it is high. 

 The compression of the body begins immediately behind the pec- 

 torals, aiid increases to the end of the tail, which, with its investing 

 fins, is much rounded in the outline of the tip. The depression of 

 the head augments to the end of the snout, which has very little 

 vei'tical height, and is obtuse transversely ; it nearly equals the 

 lower jaw in length, and its breadth is augmented by thick scaleless 

 lips, that can be made to stand out laterally like wings. In this 

 position the breadth of a single lip is equal to three-fourths of the 

 width of the snout, and it gradually narrows off to the corner of the 

 mouth, just in the same proportion that the width of the jaw in- 

 creases. The under jaw is furnished with a lip of similar shape 

 and size, pierced by rows of large pores ; and the scaly integument, 

 ending abruptly at the bases of both lips, produces at first sight 

 the appearance of an exterior lip; but there is not actually a dis- 

 tinct fold of the skin there. The short tubular anterior nostril is 

 placed on the margin of the snout, just where the lip joins it, and 

 the naked circular orifice of the posterior one is on a level with the 

 upper margin of the orbit, and about one-third as far before it as 

 the eye is distant from the anterior nostril. Eye small, and 

 situated over the posterior third of the mouth, which is of the usual 

 size in the AnguiUtB ; but small if compared with the Congri. The 

 distance between the eyes equals the distance between the orbit 

 and end of the snout, and is contained four times in the length of 

 the head measured to the gill-opening. This last-mentioned mea- 

 surement is three times and a half the length of the gape. 



Vomerine and nasal teeth in one cluster, without any perceptible 

 line of separation, forming a brush-like plate, which tjipers to a 

 point on the roof of the mouth, and does not extend so far back by 

 one quarter as the palatines. The individual teeth are short, slen- 

 der, cylindrical, and slightly recurved, with small, compressed, 

 acute tips. The palatine bones are armed with a main series of 



