326 



CLASSIFICATION OF FISHES. 



naturalise this spe- 

 cies at Strasburg ; 

 for which purpose 

 several young ones 

 were brought from 

 Hungary, and turned 

 into the river: this 

 plan has been in some 

 degree successful ; 

 for although the 

 fish have not mul- 

 tiplied, in their new 

 abode, so rapidly as 

 was anticipated, yet fine individuals are occasionally 

 caught there, and even transmitted to the Parisian 

 market. In India, most of the larger species are eaten 

 by the natives, and many by the Europeans, notwith- 

 standing the prejudice arising from their lurid colour 

 and repulsive shape. In Britain, we have no proof 

 that this species has ever existed ; for although Mr. 

 Yarrell has introduced it into his valuable enumeration 

 of our native fish, he very justly questions the fact of 

 its having been known to Sibbald, who has probably 

 mistaken the burbot for the " Silurus, sive Giants" of 

 the ancients. 



(274.) The form of the majority of these fishes is 

 altogether peculiar, or, at least, we only find partial re- 

 presentations of them in other families. The mouth is 

 small, furnished with fascicles of minute teeth, often so 

 imperceptible, that they have justly been compared to 

 the pile of velvet : these teeth are variously shaped 

 and disposed, but without any of that uniformity which 

 induces us to look to them as organs deserving a 

 primary consideration. In species bearing the closest 

 approximation in all other respects, one will possess 

 teeth, while the other has none*; even when present, 

 they are so very minute as not to be clearly defined, 



* Bagris, Pimelodus, &c. of M. Cuvier are striking instances of the impos- 

 sibility of classing these fishes by their teeth alone. 



