CARTILAGINOUS FISHES. 253 



the characters by which it is marked are obvious, with- 

 out any recourse to dissection, or even minute obser- 

 vation. The most remarkable and general charac- 

 teristic is the gristly nature of the skeleton ; and on 

 that account they are called 



CARTILAGINOUS FISHES. 



They are also called CHONDROPTERYGIOUS ; and that 

 name is expressive both of the skeleton and of the 

 covering of the surface, especially thefins of the greater 

 part of the division, %ov$po$ signifying cartilage, and 

 also granulated, and the remainder of the compound 

 name meaning Jlnned. And a considerable number 

 of these fishes have their fins so hard and granular 

 on the surface, that they serve for polishing, like files, 

 while others have spines and shelly knobs. These 

 spines are sometimes very formidable weapons, as in 

 the serrated spine, which terminates the tail of the 

 sting ray, (trygon pastinaca ;) and in those of the 

 common dog-fish, (squalus acanthius;) although the 

 wounds inflicted by these animals are said not to occa- 

 sion nearly so much pain as those inflicted by the 

 common weever (trachmus draco,) an osseous fish, 

 about a foot long, the wounding weapon of which 

 (commonly represented as being venemous) is the first 

 spine of the dorsal fin. If w r e were not prepared to 

 meet with all sorts of organizations among the pro- 

 ductions of nature, we should be apt to wonder at this 

 production of bony matter, as hard as the most com- 

 pact teeth, upon the surface of fishes, the internal ske- 

 letons of which never acquire any harder consistency 



