710 TELEOSTEI CHAP. 
of Blennius occur in abundance on our coasts, and are among the 
most familiar tenants: of small rock-pools. Their habits have 
been admirably described by Guitel.t The male makes a sort of 
nest, and defends the brood. Numerous species of the genus 
Salarias occur in the tropics; these little fish, as their name 
implies, are remarkable for the long leaps they are able to make. 
The largest of the Blenniids are the “ Wolf-Fishes,” often named 
“Cat-Fishes” (Anarrhichas), of which one species (4. lupus) is 
common on the British coasts, growing to a length of 5 or 6 
feet. “It is impossible,” says Brown Goode, “ to imagine a more 
voracious-looking animal than the Sea Cat-Fish, with the massive 
head and long sinuous, muscular body, its strongly rayed fins, its 
vice-like jaws, armed with great pavements of teeth, those in 
front long, strong, pointed, like those of a tiger. It has been 
known to attack furiously persons wading at low tide among the 
rock-pools.” Its flesh is excellent eating, but generally despised 
in this country owing to the unprepossessing appearance of the 
animal. 
Fam. 10. Batrachidae.—Suborbital arch absent; basis 
cranli simple; mouth very large, slightly protractile, bordered 
to a great extent by the maxillaries. Vertebrae numerous, 
29-46 (11-12+4+17-34), without ribs, with sessile epipleurals, 
simulating ribs;* parapophyses rudimentary or absent. Post- 
temporal small and ankylosed to the skull; scapula and coracoid 
much reduced, 4 or 5 elongate pterygials, dilated distally, the 
two lower in contact with the coracoid. Ventral fins jugular, 
with 1 spine and 2 or 3 branched rays. Gill-openings narrow, 
the gill-membranes broadly grown to the isthmus; gills 3; 
pseudobranchiae absent. Head broad and depressed ; body naked 
or with small scales. Spinous dorsal very short, soft dorsal and 
anal long. 
This family is on the whole intermediate between the 
Blenniidae and the Pediculati. Sluggish, voracious, carnivorous 
Fishes from the shores of tropical and warm seas, some of them 
ascending rivers. The species number about 20, referable to 
1 Arch. Zool. Expér. (3) i. 1893, p. 325. 
2 What has been described as the rib of the first vertebra is an ossified liga- 
ment, probably homologous with the first epipleural, which extends from the 
clavicle to the neural arch of the first vertebra (ligamentwm scapulo-occipitale of 
Siebenrock), 
