218 PISCES. 



in a thick and tubercular skin, that it has the appearance, externally, of being 

 a simple dorsal hump ; there are three ranges of thick conical tubercles on each 

 side of it. It feeds on Medusa; and other gelatinous animals, particularly in 

 the North. Its flesh is soft and insipid ; heavy, and with scarcely any means 

 of defence, it becomes the prey of the Seal, Shark, &c. The male is said to 

 keep careful watch over the eggs. 



ECHENEIS, Linnaeus. 



This genus, as well as that of Pleuronectes, might form a particular family 

 in the order of the Malacopterygii Subrachiati. The fishes of which it consists 

 are remarkable for a flattened disk placed upon their head, composed of a 

 certain number of transverse, cartilaginous laminae, directed obliquely back- 

 wards, dentated or spiny on their posterior edge, and moveable ; so that by 

 creating a vacuum between them, or by hooking on to various bodies by means 

 of the spines, they are enabled to attach themselves firmly thereto, a circum - 

 stance which gave rise to the fabulous saying, that the Ilemora possessed the 

 power of suddenly stopping a vessel in the middle of its swiftest course. 



The species are not numerous; the most common one that inhabits the 

 Mediterranean, Echen. remora, Lin., well known by the name of Remora, is the 

 shortest, and has but eighteen lamina; in its disk. 



ORDER IV. 



MALACOPTERYGII APODES. 



THIS order may be considered as forming but a single natural family, that 

 of the 



ANGUILLIFORMES, 



Fishes with an elongated form, a thick and soft skin, which almost renders its 

 scales invisible, and but few bones. The great genus 



.A! rirr.NA. Linnaeus, 



Is recognised by the little opercula concentrically surrounded by the rays, all 

 of which are enveloped in the skin, which only opens 

 at a considerable distance back by a hole or species of 

 tube; an arrangement which, by more completely pro- 

 tecting the branchiae, allows these fishes to remain 

 some time out of water without perishing. Their body is long and slender ; 

 their scales, as if incrusted in a fat and thick skin, are only distinctly visible 

 after desiccation ; they have neither ventrals nor caeca. This genus has been 

 successively separated into five or six genera, which naturalists are compelled 

 to subdivide still more. 



