230 PISCES. 



Torpedo so celebrated ; violent shocks are experienced by touching it, and it is 

 most probable that the same power is employed to bewilder its prey. The 

 body is smooth, the teeth small and sharp. 



FAMILY II. 



SUCTORIL CYCLOSTOMI, Dnmeril. 



THE Suctorii, as regards the skeleton, are the most imperfect of fishes, and 

 even of all vertebrated animals. They have neither pec- 

 torals nor ventrals ; their elongated body is terminated 

 before by a circular or semicircular Jleshy lip, and the 

 cartilaginous ring which supports it results from the 

 soldering of the palatines to the mandibularies. The 

 bodies of all the vertebrae are traversed by a single ten- 

 dinous cord, filled with a mucilaginous substance without strangulations, 

 which reduces them to the condition of cartilaginous rings, scarcely distinct 

 from each other. The annular portion, a little more solid than the rest, is not 

 however cartilaginous throughout the whole of its circle. They have no 

 ordinary ribs ; but the small branchial ones, which are hardly perceptible in 

 the Squali and Rays, are here greatly developed and united with each other, 

 forming a kind of cage, while there are no solid branchial arches. The 

 branchiae, instead of being pectinated as in all other fishes, resemble purses, 

 resulting from the junction of one face of a branchia with the opposing one of 

 its neighbour. The labyrinth of the ear is inclosed by the cranium, and the 

 nostrils open externally by a single orifice, in front of which is a blind cavity. 



PETROMYZON, Linnceus*. 



The Lampreys have several branchial openings on each side ; the skin of the 

 tail above and beneath is turned up into a longitudinal crest which supplies 

 the place of a fin, but in which the rays resemble scarcely visible fibres. 



The maxillary ring of the True Lamprey is armed with strong teeth, and 

 the interior disk of the lip, which is very circular, is furnished with tubercles 

 covered with an extremely hard shell, and similar to teeth. There are two 

 longitudinal rows of small teeth on the tongue, which moves backwards and 

 forwards like a piston ; by this, that suction is produced which distinguishes 

 this animal. Water reaches the branchiae from the mouth by a particular 

 membranous canal, placed under the oesophagus and perforated with holes, 

 that may be compared to a tracheae. These fishes habitually fix themselves by 

 suction to stones and other solid bodies ; they attack the largest fishes in the 

 same way, and are finally enabled to pierce and devour them. 



Lamproye, Lampreda, Lamprey, conniptions of Lampetra, which is itself modern, 

 and, according to some, derived from Lambendo, petras. Petromyzon is the Greek trans- 

 lation of the same, by Artcdi. 



