202 



CLASSIFICATION OF FISHES. 



rays of the fins are all soft : the branchial openings as 

 in the Balistidce, is confined to a small slit or spiracle : 

 the operculum is concealed beneath the skin, so that the 

 branchia themselves are concealed. Not one of these 

 characters belongs to the typical osseous fishes; while, 

 on the other hand, every one of them are characteristic 

 of the order now before us. Like the aberrant BalistidcB, 

 the branchial arches are very few — only four in num- 

 ber; and like them, also, these fishes have the power of 

 Inflating their bodies like a balloon when agitated by 

 fear or anger. Their remaining characters, however, are 

 altogether peculiar; and even their very aspect is suffi- 

 cient to distinguish them {Chir. histrio,fig.24<.) ; they are 



the most grotesque — we had almost said the most hide- 

 ous — of all fishes, and, as their vernacular name of frog- 

 fish implies, they have nearly as much the appearance of 

 frogs or toads as of fish; this similarity may be perceived 

 in the headof 31althe nasuta(fig.35.). The late Mr.Ben- 



nethas very justly insistedon 

 the intimate affinity between 

 these strange-looking crea- 

 tures and the file-fish, or 5fl- 

 UstidcE, — an affinity which 

 has only been disturbed, as 

 we believe, in the Regne 

 Animal. The imagination 

 can scarcely conceive more fanciful forms than such as 



