

SHARP-NOSED EEL. 327 



ever seen, and weighed ten pounds. One which was caught 

 in Hackney River, is noticed to have been of the weight of 

 twenty-seven pounds, and there is a notice of an example taken 

 in the Medway, not far from Rochester, which weighed thirty- 

 four pounds, and measured six feet in length, with a girth of 

 twenty-five inches; hut even this is exceeded by an instance 

 mentioned by Mr. Daniel, of one taken in Kent, which weighed 

 forty pounds, and in length measured five feet nine inches, 

 but, strangely, its girth is said to be (only) eighteen inches. 

 I possess a printed note of one that weighed sixty-two pounds; 

 but I must confess that I regard this as apocryphal. The 

 general proportions of this fish are lengthened, flexible, at 

 first round, compressed backwards from the vent. The head 

 rounded over the top, from a meeting of the muscles of the 

 face, tapering forward to the snout, which is moderately slender, 

 and at its point are two sharp perforated barbs; another obscure 

 pair of nostrils; under jaw protruding beyond the upper; lips 

 fleshy; small teeth in both jaws; cheeks full; eyes small, opposite 

 the corner of the mouth. Orifice of the gills small, with a 

 soft border, the opening in front of and a little below the root 

 of the pectoral fin. Lateral line straight; the surface of the 

 skin soft and slimy, so as to render it difficult, even to a 

 proverb, to hold the living fish in the grasp. In an example 

 twenty-five inches and a quarter in length, the distance from 

 the point of the upper jaw to the origin of the pectoral fin 

 was three inches, and to the first rays of the dorsal fin eight 

 inches; to the vent eleven inches; from which point begins the 

 anal fin; the colour of different degrees of intensity of dark 

 brown or green, the belly yellowish or white; the cheeks 

 lighter; eye pink, red, or yellow; pectoral fin dark blue; other 

 fins generally the colour of the body. 



