116 



FISH GALLERY. 



soft and spongy during the breeding-season. After the breeding- 

 season the skin again becomes smooth and firm. 



An- 

 sruillidfe. 



Common 

 Eel. 



Anguilliformes (Eels). 



The suborder Anguilliformes or Apodes embraces the "Eels/* 

 using the term in the widest sense. In these fishes the body is 

 very long, and without pelvic fins (whence the name "Apodes'"). 

 The dorsal and anal fins are in a few cases wanting ; in most they 

 are long-based and continuous around the hind end of the body, 

 there being no separate tail-fin. None of the fins have hard or 

 " spinous " fin-rays. The vertebras are very numerous, as one 

 would expect in such long-bodied fishes ; the shoulder-girdle is not 

 attached to the back of the cranium and has no mesocoracoid 

 bone. The premaxillary bones are absent, and the maxillse are 

 separated by the coalesced ethmoid and vomerine bones. The two 

 parietal bones meet in a median suture ; there is no separate 

 symplectic bone. 



The Eels are widely spread over the temperate and tropical 

 zones ; some occur at great depths of the sea. A few, such as the 

 Common Eel, enter fresh water to feed and grow, but they return 

 to the sea to breed. 



In the family Anguillidae are included important food-fishes 

 like the Common or Fresh-water Eel, Anguilla vulgaris (395), and 

 the Conger, Conger vulgaris (396) . In Anguilla there are rudi- 

 mentary scales, oblong in form, deeply embedded in the skin and 

 arranged in small groups, the scales of each group being oblique 

 to the length of the body and at right-augles to the scales of the 

 groups above and below. In the genus Conger scales are 

 wanting. 



The Common Eel, Anguilla vulgaris (395), has a very wide 

 distribution in the Northern hemisphere, extending through 

 Europe, North Africa and Asia, but not occurring in the rivers 

 discharging into the Arctic Ocean, the Black Sea and the Caspian 

 Sea. This Eel probably also occurs in America and the West 

 Indies^ although the Americans name their common Eel Anguilla 

 chrisypa. The Eel of the fresh-waters of Australia and New 

 Zealand is of another species. 



