SPINY-FINNED FISHES. 323 



They are celebrated on account of the manner in which they are 

 said to project drops of water at insects that frequent aquatic plants, 

 in order to bring them down to feed on them. They can hit their 

 ?ame at the height of three or four feet, and rarely miss their aim. 



The family of Labyrinthiform Pharyngeals is re- 

 markable from its members possessing an apparatus 

 of very complicated cells situated above the gills. 

 These cells, enclosed beneath the operculum, and 

 formed by convolutions of the bones of the throat, 

 serve to retain a certain quantity of water, which 

 keeps the branchiae wet when the animal is exposed 

 to the air, and thus enables it to live for a consider- 

 able time out of the water. Some species are in the 

 habit of leaving the rivers and pools, their usual 

 abode, and going to considerable distances, crawling 

 on the grass or on the land, Those that possess the 

 labyrinthiform arrangement in its highest degree of 

 complication (Anabas, Perca scandens), not only re- 

 main a long time out of the water, but also, as we 

 are told, climb trees. Most of the fishes of this 

 family inhabit India and China. 



The family of Mackerels (Scomberoids) is the most 

 important of the order. It comprises many fishes of 

 considerable size, the flesh of which is excellent, and 

 their fecundity so inexhaustible, that in spite of the 

 continued destruction to which they are subject, they 

 return yearly in immense legions to the same locali- 

 ties, and offer themselves a rich reward to the 

 activity of fishermen and the industry of those who 

 make it a business to prepare and preserve them. In 

 general, the Scomberoids have very small scales, and 

 a large part of their skin is smooth. They have no 

 spines nor denticulations upon the opercular bones ; 

 their vertical fins are not scaly ; the tail and the 

 caudal fin are large and very vigorous. Most of 

 them have the sides of the tail armed with broad 

 shield-like plates ; and, in many, the posterior rays 

 of the second dorsal and anal fins are separated into 

 distinct portions, and form so many false or spurious 

 iins. 



