The Blennies: Blenniide he Gi 
an elaborate series of venom glands connected with the hollow 
spines of the opercle and the dorsal spines. Dr. Gunther gives 
the following account of this structure as shown in Thalasso- 
‘phryne reticulata, a species from Panama: 
“In this species I first observed and closely examined the 
poison organ with which the fishes of this genus are provided. 
Its structure is as follows: (1) The opercular part: The oper- ° 
culum is very narrow, vertically styliform and very mobile; it is 
armed behind with a spine, eight lines long in a specimen of ro} 
inches, and of the same form as the venom fang of a snake; it 
is, however, somewhat less curved, being only slightly bent 
upward. It has a longish slit at the outer side of its extremity 
which leads into a canal perfectly closed and running along 
the whole length of its interior; a bristle introduced into the 
canal reappears through another opening at the base of the 
spine, entering into a sac situated on the opercle and along the 
basal half of the spine; the sac is of an oblong-ovate shape and 
about double the size of an oat grain. Though the specimen 
had been preserved in spirits for about nine months it still con- 
tained a whitish substance of the consistency of thick cream, 
which on the slightest pressure freely flowed from the opening 
in the extremity of the spine. On the other hand, the sac could 
be easily filled with air or fluid from the foramen of the spine. 
No giand could be discovered in the immediate neighborhood 
of the sac. (2) The dorsal part is composed of the two dorsal 
spines, each of which is ten lines long. The whole arrange- 
ment is the same as in the opercular spines; their slit is at the 
front side of the point; each has a separate sac, which occupies 
the front of the basal portion. 
Suborder Xenopterygii.— The clingfishes, forming the sub- 
order Nenopterygii (Servos, strange; 7Tepvés, fin), are, perhaps, 
allied to the toadfishes. The ventral fins are jugular, the rays 
I, 4 or 1, 5, and between them is developed an elaborate suck- 
ing-disk, not derived from modified fins, but from folds of the 
skin and underlying muscles. 
The body is formed much as in the toadfishes. The skin 
is naked and there is no spinous dorsal fin. The skeleton shows 
several peculiarities; there is no suborbital ring, the palatine 
arcade is reduced, as are the gill-arches, the opercle is reduced 
