BY THE REV. J. E. TENISON-WOODS. 175 



Those living in brackish water have a purplish tinge. They are all 

 good eating. I remember buying one from a native who had just 

 captured it in the Salama river. It weighed about seven pounds, 

 and made an excellent curry that evening as we camped on the 

 river banks. Mr. Francis Day says they are well adapted for 

 pisciculture, as they thrive in almost any situation, being voracious 

 and omnivorous. He carried one in a wet handkerchief on a 

 journey of four hours, ascending 1000 feet, and it did not seem 

 the worse for it. He thinks they prefer dirty to clean water. He 

 says, " they are rather voracious, but appear to consider a frog, a 

 mouse or a rat, as luscious a morsel as a fellow fish. When they 

 have stirred up all the sediment and exuded a quantity of mucus 

 they appear to be delighted, their colors become much more vivid, 

 and they ascend to their favourite resort, lying amongst the vege- 

 tation just beneath the surface of the water. As soon as clean 

 water is given them they become excited as if they imagined the 

 time had arrived when they should change their abode." 



"Amongst the fish which I have personally seen exhumed from 

 the mud, where a tank had been dried up, are some Ophiocephali, 

 whilst they are also the fish recorded by the natives of India as 

 descending with the downpours of rain."* 



How these fishes manage to subsist so long out of the water I 

 shall refer to subsequently. Let me now mention the second 

 family which is characteristic of the Indian region of the equatorial 

 zone. This is Mastacembelidse, a family which, to my mind, has 

 far more title to the name of snake-fishes. They have long eel- 

 like bodies, having a less repulsive appearance than Murcena, and 

 rendered especially eel-like by a soft dorsal and anal fin at the tail 

 only, and very small scales. The structure of the mouth and of the 

 branchial apparatus, the separation of the humeral arch from the 

 skull, the absence of ventral fins, the anatomy of the abdominal 

 organs, afford ample evidence that these fishes are Acanthoptery- 

 gian eels (Giinther). 



* Day, Fishes of India, Vol. I., p. 362. 



