36 Mr Taylor on the Respiratory Organs and Air-bladder 



pails of water, and slices are cut for sale as wanted, the fish 

 sellino- dear while it retains life, while what remains after death 

 is considered of little value. 11 The Coins Cobojius can be kept 

 alive without water for five or six days, and, according to the 

 same author, is often conveyed in that state to the Calcutta 

 market, from marshes at the distance of one hundred and fifty 

 miles. This species, and the Ophiocephalus Gachua, like the 

 Doras Costata or hassar, Dr Hancock's Zoological Journal, 

 No. xiv., possess the power of locomotion on land to a consi- 

 derable extent ; and are the fishes so often met with, after a 

 shower of rain, in fields at a distance from rivers or marshes; 

 and hence supposed to fall from the clouds. — Hamilton's Ac- 

 count of the Fishes of the Ganges, p. 68. 



The air-bladder of fishes is generally found in the abdomen, 

 adhering to the lower surface of the spine. In the Ophioce- 

 phalus Marulius and Gachua, however, it is not confined in its 

 situation to that cavity, but extends as far as the extremity of 

 the tail, more than two-thirds of it being enclosed between the 

 caudal portions of the lateral muscles. It is of a cylindrical 

 shape, and is divided internally into unequal cavities, by a 

 transverse septum, formed by a reflection of the internal coat ; 

 in the centre of which septum there is a small foramen sur- 

 rounded by a number of short radiated fibres, apparently of a 

 muscular structure, allowing the air to pass from one compart- 

 ment to the other. The external tunic, at the anterior or ab- 

 dominal extremity of the organ, is apparently of a muscular 

 texture, and is provided with a large nerve, derived from the 

 eighth pair; but behind it is thin and weak, the powerful late- 

 ral muscles by which it is encased supplying its want of mus- 

 cularity. 



The same kind of internal division exists in the air-bladder 

 of the Macrognathus Armatus. In both of these fishes, the 

 vascular body which, it is generally supposed, secretes the air 

 of the bladder, is situate on the internal surface of the anterior 

 portion of the organ, and consists of several small kidney-shap- 

 ed glands, with minute villi diverging from them. 



In the Coins Cobojius it extends also as far as the end of 

 the tail. Behind the bone that forms the boundary of the ab- 

 dominal cavity, it is divided longitudinally by the spines that 

 support the anal fin, into two cavities : strong tendinous fibres 



