ANALOGIES OF THE ORDER. 11 



tion "between the Cohitidcs and the Siluridce remains to 

 be discovered : they certainly, however, appear to have 

 no immediate connection with the EsocincB, or pikes^ 

 although such is the station assigned to them in the 

 Regne Animal. 



(8.) It is almost unnecessary in this place to compare 

 the tribes of the Acanthopteryges with the orders of the 

 whole class^ because, as these latter have already been 

 traced in the divisions of the Malacopteryges, it ne- 

 cessarily follows from the results in our last table, that 

 the tribes of the present order have precisely the same 

 relations. We shall, however, place them before the 

 reader in a distinct table, not only because he will thus 

 have them immediately beneath his eye, but because 

 some very remarkable similarities, not yet alluded to, 

 will be elicited by the comparison. 



Analogies of the Acanthopteryges to the Orders of 



Fishes. 



Tribes. Analogies. Orders. 



MACuo^KPTES. { Th^^,--t typic^^^ of their re- 1 ^,eA.THOPXKKVCHS. 



MiCKOLEPTES. Sub-typical. Scales in general small. Malacopteryges. 



r Body narrow, excessively long ; 7 a pqbes 



X_ ventral fins often wanting, j 



CEody more or less mailed ; 7 p 



1 mouth small ; eyes vertical, j ^lectognathes. 



Gymnetres. 

 Canthileptes 



■D^ „.T,T.^T,„ f Rays of the fins flexible ; head 1 ^ . ^^„ . ^r^,r,„ 



Blenxides. I depressed 5 viviparous. j Cartilagines. 



The typical and sub-typical groups in these columns 

 need not detain us, for it has already been seen that 

 they constitute the two most perfect divisions in each : 

 we shall therefore merely glance at the three last, or 

 the aberrant divisions. The whole of the Gymnetres, 

 or riband-fish, may be called the eels of the spine-rayed 

 order ; for although, as their name implies, they are 

 compressed instead of cylindrical, yet the excessive 

 length and slenderness of their bodies, their long dorsal 

 finsj and the freouent absence of the ventrals (as in the 



