8o LEWIS : REMARKABLE FISHES. 



appendages, suited only to the calm of undisturbed waters at 

 great ocean depths. 



The third and last family of the Tacniosomi is founded on 

 a single specimen of an extraordinary fish taken in the Atlan- 

 tic between Cuba and Martinique in 1790, and preserved in 

 the British Museum. This fish was so unlike any other that 

 it required to be placed in a distinct family. It is not even 

 certain that it belongs to the group of the Tacniosomi^ but it 

 appears to be more like these than other fishes, and, for the 

 present, awaiting fuller knowledge, is classed with them. 



This remarkable fish has a body eleven inches, a tail 

 twenty-two inches, and a total length of thirty-three inches, 

 only a little less than a yard in extent. It is silvery in color, 

 and ribbon shaped. Its eye is large and turned forward. Its 

 mouth is without teeth, its snout being long and probably 

 fitted for sucking its food, as it is subcylindrical. 



No immediate relationship has ever been shown to exist 

 between the Lady Fishes and allies, with their band shaped 

 young ; the band shaped Cutlass Fishes and the Ribbon 

 Fishes of the Tacniosomi . If any hidden clue exists, it must 

 be in the ancestry of all these different lines of fishes, pos- 

 sibly in some extinct form which may never be traced. The 

 facts here brought together are, however, suggestive, and 

 open a wide field of thought and conjecture. 



