146 FISHES. 



species are sliced alive for consumption*. They may be divided by the 

 number of tlieir dorsal rays. Some have but thirty odd of these raysf. 

 Others forty odd i. Some again have more than fifty §. 



FAMILY XL 



MUGILOIDES. 



The Mugiloides constitute the eleventh family of the Acanthoptery- 

 gians, and is composed of the genus 



JMuGiL, Lin. 



The Mullets, which may virtually be considered as a distinct family, so 

 many peculiarities do they offer in their organization ; their body is almost 

 cylindrical, covered with large scales, and furnished with two separate 

 dorsals, the first of which has but four spinous rays; the ventrals are in- 

 serted a little behind the pectorals. There are six rays in the branchiae ; 

 their head is somewhat depressed, and covered with large scales or poly- 

 gonal plates, their muzzle very short. Their transverse mouth forms an 

 angle, by means of a prominence in the middle of the lower jaw, which 

 corresponds with a depression in the upper one, the teeth being exces- 

 sively tenuous, and frequently almost imperceptible. Their pharyngeal 

 bones, highly developed, give an angular form to the opening of the 

 oesophagus, similar to that of the mouth, which only permits fluids or very 

 small matters to pass into the stomach, notwithstanding which this sto- 

 mach terminates in a sort of fleshy gizzard, analogous to that of Birds ; 

 they have but few pyloric appendages, but the intestine is long and 

 doubled. 



They are capital fish, resort to the mouths of rivers in large troops, 

 and are continually making great leaps out of the water ; the European 

 seas produce several species hitherto very imperfectly ascertained ||. 



M. cephahis, Cuv. (The Common Mullet). Distinguished from 

 all the other species of Europe by its eyes, which are half covered 

 by two adipose veils, adhering to the anterior and posterior edge of 

 the orbit; by the fact, that when the mouth is closed, the maxillary 

 is completely hidden under the sub-orbital ; and by the base of the 



• This is most incontestibly the genus alluded to by Theophrastus. 



+ Ophicephalus vtmcfnfus, Bl., or Opk. lata, Buchan. ; — O. marginatus, Cuv., or O. 

 gachua, Buchan.? pi. xxi. f. 21, or Cor. motta, Russel, II, pi. 164; — 0. auranticus, 

 Buch. 



X Ophicephalus striatus, Bl. 359, or Muttah, Russel, pi. 162, or O. cliena, Buch.? 

 ." O. sola, Id.; — O. sowara, Russ. 163. 



§ Ophicephalus viurulius, Buch., which is the Bosirichoide ceille, Lacep. II, xiv, 3; 

 — Oph. burca, Buch. xxxv, 20, to which the Bostriche tachete, Lacep. Ill, p. 143, is at 

 least very closely allied, and several new species to be described in our Icthyology. 



II Linnaeus and several of his successors have confounded all the European Mul- 

 lets under a single species, their Mugil cephalus. 



