PRIMARY DIVISIONS OF THE MALACOPTERYGES. 231 



The cod, haddock^ and whiting, are familiar examples ; 

 and nearly all are confined to the seas of cold or tem- 

 perate latitudes. 



(207.) The Siluridcd, or cat-fish, in many respects, 

 have a strong resemblance to some of the last: like 

 them, they are furnished with cirri on the head, but 

 often prolonged to an enormous length : the body is 

 generally soft and mucous, but the head is hard and 

 bony ; and although there are no true scales, the head 

 of very many, and the whole body of the typical species, 

 are covered with hard bony plates, which either serve the 

 office of a helmet or a complete . coat of mail. The 

 species are very numerous in the great rivers of hot 

 climates, more especially in those of India ; and they 

 swarm in the Ganges : one only has been found in the 

 European range ; so that we may look on it as a tropical 

 family. The head is greatly depressed, so as to ex- 

 hibit, when viewed in front, some slight resemblance to 

 that of a eat, from whence the vernacular name of cat- 

 fish. 



(208.) The Cohitidce, or loaches, form a small family 

 of freshwater fish, well distinguished from the Siluridce 

 by their elongated and somewhat rounded body, the 

 compression of the head, and the possession, in general, 

 of true scales : they differ from ail the other soft-finned 

 fishes, by being viviparous. The primary type, how- 

 ever, of this family, appears to be Andbleps : their 

 mouth is small, and furnished with cirri ; and the 

 aperture of their gills, like that of the eels, is merely a 

 lateral slit behind the pectoral fin, confined by a skin at 

 both extremities : the generative organs of the male 

 have a close analogy to certain of the cartilaginous fishes. 

 The passage from this family to that with which we 

 began, is effected by certain genera, as Poecilia, Lehias, 

 See, which have the above characters united with 

 the oval body of the carp {CyprincB) ; and, indeed, 

 these two families are so connected by their aberrant 

 types, that all writers have arranged them close to- 

 gether. 



