-, 28 The Philippine Journal of Science m* 



alive to the Manila markets in considerable numbers, being 

 caught in the bangos fishponds of Bulacan and Pampanga. 



According to Day it reaches a length of several feet. My 

 specimens range in length from 191 to 415 millimeters. This is 

 a fish of shallow seas, coastal waters, and estuaries, particularly 

 where brackish, and it ascends rivers, mostly within or near 

 the influence of the tides. It is known from India eastward 

 to the Philippines, New Guinea, and Dampier Archipelago on 

 the coast of West Australia. 



Order APODES 



This order includes bony fishes with the premaxillaries greatly 

 reduced or absent, the maxillaries lateral, and the body eel-like, 

 without ventral fins, and either naked or with vestigial or very 

 small scales. The pectoral arch is not attached to the skull, and 

 pectoral fins may be present or absent. The intermaxillaries 

 are represented by a bony plate bearing teeth, which fills in the 

 space anteriorly between the dentigerous maxillaries which form 

 the upper jaw. When present the caudal fin is united with the 

 dorsal and anal, the fins never being spinous. The vertebrae 

 are numerous and not specially modified, those of the tail remain- 

 ing in a straight line to its extremity— isocercal. 



When very young the eels are translucent ribbon-shaped crea- 

 tures of the oceanic abysses or the open sea. These larval forms 

 were long known as Leptocephali, and pass through a series 

 of changes before assuming the adult form. Leptocephalus, 

 however, can no longer be used as a name for larval eels and 

 isospondylous fishes, but under the rules of synonymy must be 

 restricted to the conger eels. 



Simplicity of structure in the eels is not an indication of 

 primitiveness but is evidently the result of degeneration of the 

 mouth parts and fins. The Apodes seem to be an offshoot from 

 the soft-rayed fishes, and their divergence from them is, as a 

 whole, a retrogression. 



This is a large order, of great interest to the systematic zoolo- 

 gist, the evolutionist, the geographer, the ecologist, the food 

 economist, and the business man. Some representatives occur 

 in all tropical and temperate regions, and in both fresh and salt 

 water, but the species are mostly marine. They particularly 

 abound about tropical reefs and often have very beautiful or 



