Class IV. TRIFURCATED TADPOLE FISH. 273 



head depressed and very broad; eyes large, 

 irides yellowish; mouth very wide, with irre- 

 gular rows of incurvated teeth ; in the roof of 

 the mouth is likewise a congeries of teeth. No 

 tongue, a broad abrupt rudiment only supplying 

 the defect. The body is compressed, but re- 

 markably so as it approaches the tail. It has, 

 placed in a furrow, the rudiment of a first dorsal 

 fin, consisting of three slender feeble rays, 

 which may elude the ken of a cursory observer ; 

 the second dorsal fin reaches almost to the tail, 

 and has sixty-two rays ; the anal corresponds, 

 and has fifty-nine ; the tail thirty-six ; the pec- 

 toral has twenty-three ; the ventral six rays, the 

 three last of which are very slender and short, 

 and the whole connected by so very delicate a 

 membrane, as to be readily separated in drying, 

 which happening to be the case, with the sub- 

 ject which was sent to Mr. Pennant, deceived 

 him, and induced him to bestow on it a trivial 

 name not very apposite, but which it is by 

 no means adviseable to change, as it has been 

 transferred into so many eminent works. Above 

 the pectoral fins, on each side, is a row of tuber- 

 cles, nine or ten in number, from the last of 

 which commences the lateral line, which de- 

 scends in a curved direction at the middle, and 



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