THE LOACHES. 



BALITORA. 



m 



(Jigs. Q9, 100.) will be sufficient to show that no fish 



yet discovered of 

 the soft-rayed 

 -order makes so 

 near an approach 

 to the external 

 shape of a carti- 

 laginous fish as 

 this ; while the 

 circumstance of 

 its living in 

 mountain streams*, joined to its single dorsal fin, small 

 scales, and general habit, sanctions the idea that it enters 

 within the confines of the family of Cobitidce, of which 

 it forms the platyrostral or cartilaginous type. Its ana- 

 logy to Calyonymus and Liparis is likewise too obvious 

 x) require explanation ; but, from both these, we con- 

 sider it is far removed, were it only from the single 

 circumstance of possessing small, but well-defined, 

 scales. That there may be other links, yet discovered, 

 between the malacopterygious and cartilaginous orders, 

 seems to us highly probable. Our simple proposition 

 in short is this, that, of all fishes yet known belonging 

 to the former of these orders, those of the genus Balitora 

 make the nearest approach, in their external structure, 

 to the latter order : we therefore place it as the last of the 

 Cohitidce : and, as all authors agree in the affinity of 

 Polyodon to the sharks, so do we arrange that genus as 

 the first on the list of the aberrant cartilaginous genera, 

 after quitting the Malacopteryges or soft- rayed order. 

 (298.) We shall now terminate our survey of the 



* I imply this from,the expression " mountain streams'''' upon the plate. 



