SORTATION. 



bony plates and ridged, the caudal ridge in one (Siphonostoma) being 

 continuous with the lateral ridge, that in the other (Syngnathus) being 

 continuous with the dorsal. The two others are distinguishable by 

 the development of the jaws into a long beak, one of them (Scombre 

 sox) the skipper, having finlets, and the other (Belone),the gar-fish or 

 mackerel-guard, being without them. 



Two may be described as eel-like, one of them being the butter- 

 fish (Centronotns), which has the dorsal marked all along its base 

 with round black spots, edged with white, the other differing from it 

 in having no spots and no ventral fins. This is A mmodytes, repre- 

 sented by the three sand-eels, one of which, the smooth sand-eel (A . 

 cicerellus) has only 15 rays in its caudal fin, the others having 19, one 

 of them (A . tobianus) having the fins curved in outline, and one of 

 them (A. lanceolatus) having fins of the same height all along. 



One genus (Centroloplius) has a long, flat body with a long dorsal, 

 higher behind than in front in C. britannicus, and highest in the 

 middle in C. pompilus, which also has long pectorals, while the other 

 species, of which but a single specimen is known, has them short. 

 Another genus (Lepidopus) has the body long and thin, and tapering 

 to a small forked tail, and takes its name from the remarkable way 

 in which the ventrals have departed and left behind a single scale 

 as the only trace of their existence. Finally, there is Xiphias^ known 

 by everyone for the long, thin projecting upper jaw, which has 

 caused it to be called the sword-fish. 



In seven genera there may be a doubt as to whether there are 

 two dorsals or one, owing to the first dorsal being in some way re- 

 placed or obscured. In Echeneis, for instance, it is replaced by a 

 sucker ; in Cyclopterus, the ungainly lump-fish, it becomes hidden in 

 a fleshy ridge, and in five genera it is represented by isolated spines. 



In the angler (Lophius) these 

 spines are furnished with fila- 

 ments. A repulsive, but withal 

 interesting, fish is this, not only 

 for his hideousness, and the 

 way in which he dangles the 

 bait over his big half-moon of 

 a mouth, but for the reptilian 

 character of the paired fins 

 with which he walks about the 

 bottom of the sea ; and as to 

 his teeth, justice can only be 

 done to them by a sketch (Fig. 

 12), which we may as well sup- 

 plement with another (Fig. 13), 

 showing how the teeth are 

 hinged in the middle, so as to 

 fall down as the capture enters 

 and rise to prevent escape. 

 In the four other genera the spines are short, and have no 

 filaments. One, Lichia (the derbio), has the long lobes of the 

 deeply-forked tail tipped with black, and of the spines, which are 

 five or six in number, the first points forwards. Another, Naucrates 

 (the pilot-fish), is banded vertically with broad, dark stripes that 



12 TEETH OF ANGLER. 



