-[^2 The Philippine Journal of Science 1023 



Depth 55 to 95 in length, head 14 to 22, and 7.5 to 13 in 

 trunk; tail 2.5 to 3.1 in length of head and trunk together; cleft 

 of mouth 4.5 to 5.5 in head. 



Color pale, like that of Ascaris, to a brownish earthworm 

 hue. Abundant in the East Indies, found in southern Japan, 

 and widely distributed among the South Sea Islands. Accord- 

 ing to Giinther it reaches a length of 3 feet (nearly 1 meter) . 



Burrowing in sand, gravel, and mud along the seashore, espe- 

 cially near the mouths of fresh-water streams. 



MURvENIDiE 



This group includes large and powerful eels, with cylindrical 

 or more or less compressed and elongate to very elongate body. 

 They are distinguished at once by their thick, leathery, scale- 

 less, often beautifully colored skin, their lack of pectorals, and 

 their small, lateral, widely separated, nearly circular gill open- 

 ings; the latter in some become nearly horizontal slits. Dorsal 

 and anal fins confluent with anal and usually covered with thick 

 skin ; they may be well developed or reduced to a vestige at end 

 of tail. Cleft of mouth extends behind eye ; the jaws are usually 

 narrow and often so curved and the mouth so filled with large 

 knifelike or canine teeth that they cannot be closed. Teeth in 

 one or more series in jaws, on intermaxillary plate, and on 

 vomer ; they may be granular, molarlike, conical, or compressed, 

 pointed, depressible, and fanglike. Anterior nostrils in a tube 

 near tip of snout; posterior nostrils before or above eye and 

 sometimes with an elevated rim or a short tube. 



The skeleton shows the Mursenidse to be a degenerate type, 

 farthest removed from the more typical fishes from which the 

 eels developed. Those without fins are the simplest in struc- 

 ture, but this is a mark of degradation and they are farthest 

 from the primitive stock. 



A large family with ten or twelve genera and perhaps a 

 hundred species or more, found in the tropical and subtropical 

 seas of both hemispheres. They abound about coral reefs, and 

 in pools on exposed tide flats where many of the species burrow 

 in the coral sand with startling rapidity when disturbed. 



The morays are voracious and quarrelsome fishes and include 

 some of the largest of the eels. Many of the species are very 

 beautiful, with rich variegated colors in bands, stripes, or 

 mottled and spotted. One may see them moving about and 



