226 Prof. 6. Gulliver on the Raphides and 



passed round its body. The Chinese say that it is not rare in 

 the adjoining sea. They call it Tay-siun Ho. They eat the 

 skin, and describe it as crumbling in the mouth like biscuit ; 

 but the fleshy portions boil away to nothing, and are not worth 

 the trouble of putting in the pot. The specimen measured in 

 length 5 feet 6 inches ; across from tip to tip of fins 6 feet ; 

 length of fin 18 inches. It weighed 187 lbs. The intestine 

 was thick and fleshy, and measured 21 feet long, the duodenum 

 being 3| inches and the gut about 1^ inch broad. It had 

 one thick fleshy csecum about 9 inches from the anus, 3^ inches 

 long by 2 broad. The urethra has an opening distinct from 

 the anus, and squirted out water when the animal was stepped 

 upon. Its stomach was empty; but in the cavity between it 

 and the flesh was a long yellow tapeworm, with numerous small 

 parasitic grubs like the larvse of the lady-bird [Coccinella) , yellow 

 and black, attached to diff"erent parts of it. Outside the skin 

 about the gills wei'e sticking several large fish-lice. When first 

 caught, several sucking-fish were found fastened to its skin; 

 these had been torn ofi", and left bare and raw patches. Unfor- 

 tunately they were thrown away before I saw them. I observe 

 Cuvier says that this order of fish has no caeca. Has this genus 

 ordinarily none ? 



XXIII. — On Raphides and Sphcsraphides of Phanerogamia ; with 

 a Notice of the Crystal Prisms of Iridacese. By George 

 GuLLivEE, r.R.S. 



[Plate IV. fig. 13.] 



Of the terms Raphides and Spluer aphides. — I have commonly 

 used the term Raphides according to its etymological import 

 {pa(f)h, acus, suhula; fr. pdirrw, suo, consuo), as proposed by 

 DeCandolle, for the needle-like forms, though it has generally 

 been applied to all microscopic crystals, of what shape soever, 

 occurring in plants — thus causing such inconvenience that the 

 word should either be discarded or others used for crystals and 

 their aggregations of totally different shapes. Whenever either 

 the figure or chemical composition of them can be clearly de- 

 fined, a satisfactory designation follows as a matter of course ; 

 but this often cannot be done, especially with those very minute 

 crystals which occur most frequently. These, however, are so 

 commonly grouped in a particular manner, and are so widely 

 diffused throughout the phsenogamous class, that a particular 

 word seems to be required to distinguish them, for the present, 

 from the typical raphides. As this last term has been so ge- 

 nerally adopted, we might retain it generically, and add some 



