106 



CLASSIFICATION OF FISHES. 



(95.) The type which succeeds the last is the most 

 aberrant division of every circular group. On a former 

 occasion we have stated that one of its most prevalent 

 characters is that of having the mouth very small, or 

 otherwise but slightly developed ; and because all suck- 

 ing animals seem to belong to this type, we formerly 

 called it the suctorial: but such a function, in the present 

 class, has not been clearly made out ; and, as we have 

 already shown it is represented among reptiles by the 

 tortoises, we shall designate it by the same name there 

 employed, and here, also, call it the cheloniform type. 

 This, as was formerly mentioned, is the same as the 

 grallatorial type among birds, the gliriform among 

 quadrupeds, the onisciform or vermiform among in- 

 sects. The most prevalent distinctions of this type, 

 besides the smallness of the mouth, and. the absence of 

 true teeth, may be thus concisely stated and illustrated. 

 1. The general structure is always more dissimilar than 

 any other from the pre-eminent type ; they are, con- 

 sequently, the most imperfectly developed of their own 

 circle. 2. The jaws, or muzzle, or mandibles, are often 

 turned upwards, the lower being longer than the upper: 

 this we see in the Brazilian racoons (JVasua^) ; while 

 the avosets, and other grallatorial types, present the 

 same unusual character • and these are the smallest 

 mouthed birds in creation. 3. The eyes are always 

 particularly small, as in the mole, and other gliriform 

 quadrupeds; and in the TroeliHidcE, Tringidce. and other 

 grallatorial birds : sometimes, indeed, in the aberrant 

 Yertebrata, they are even wanting, as in My line, among 

 fish, and nearly so in Ccecilia in the class of reptiles : the 

 situation of the eyes, in all these groups, is likewise very 

 peculiar; they are placed at a distance from the mouth, 

 and very far -back upon the head, towards the crown, 

 and thus approximate. This is very observable among 

 the tenuirostral and grallatorial types of birds ; and 

 we find the same in the genera Chironectes, Uranoscopus, 

 and similarly formed fish, of which numerous examples 

 may be cited. But perhaps there is no character of this 



