62 CHIRONECTES. PHARYNGOGNATHI. 



small and broken-down to admit of preservation. The Frog- 

 fish, with all these contents, had been taken by the fishermen, 

 and offered for sale in the market as an article of food, without 

 any reference at all to the size of its stomach, which was not at 

 all unusual. The contained fishes must have been all swallowed 

 on the morning on which the Angler was taken : as they were 

 all, with the exception of the smallest, equally fresh and undi- 

 gested. The Chironectes, or Hand- fish, bears a strong resem- 

 blance to the common Angler in its structure and habits ; but 

 its fins are still more capable of motion, enabling it to walk 

 along the ground almost in the manner of quadrupeds, the 

 ventral fins, however, in consequence of their advanced position, 

 serving as the fore-legs, and the pectoral fins performing the 

 office of hind- legs. In some of the muddy estuaries of the north 

 coast of Australia, from which the tide ebbs far back in the dry 

 season, these Frog-fishes are abundant, and capable of taking 

 such vigorous leaps, that those who have visited these places 

 have, at first sight, mistaken them for birds. Their gill-open- 

 ings are very small ; and they can live out of the water for two 

 or three days. They have the faculty of inflating their large 

 stomachs with air, so as to give themselves the form of a bal- 

 loon, in this respect corresponding with the Diodon. 



D. PHARYNGOGNATHI. 



624. The Pharyngognathi, or Fishes in which the inferior 

 pharyngeal bones are united, are sometimes furnished, like those 

 of the preceding group, with spinous rays in the dorsal fin, whilst 

 in other cases these rays are wanting. By Cuvier and the sub- 

 sequent writers, therefore, these fishes were divided between 

 his two principal groups of bony fishes, the Acanthopterygii and 

 Malacopterygii. Of the four families composing the group, 

 three exhibit the structure of the fins characteristic of the former 

 group, but the spinous rays of the anterior part of the dorsal fin 

 are usually furnished with a peculiar little membranous ap- 

 pendage near the extremity, which does not occur in any other 

 fishes. 



