326 



CLASSIFICATION OF FISHES. 



naturalise this spe- 

 cies at Strasburg ; 

 for which purpose 

 several young ones 

 were brought from 

 Hungary J and turned 

 into the river : this 

 plan has been in some 

 degree successful ; 

 for although the 

 fish have not mul- 

 tiplied^ in their new 

 abode^ so rapidly as 

 was anticipated^, yet fine individuals are occasionally 

 caught there, and even transmitted to the Parisian 

 market. In IncUa^ most of the larger species are eaten 

 by the natives^ and many by the Europeans^ notwith- 

 standing the prejudice arising from their lurid colour 

 and repulsive shape. In Britain, we have no proof 

 that this species has ever existed ; for although Mr. 

 Yarrell has introduced it into his valuable enumeration 

 of our native fish, he very justly questions the fact of 

 its having been known to Sibbald^ who has probably 

 mistaken the burbot for the " Silurus, sive Glatiis," of 

 the ancients. 



(274.) The form of the majority of these fishes is 

 altogether peculiar, or, at least, we only find partial re- 

 presentations of them in other families. The mouth is 

 small, fui-nished with fascicles of minute teeth, often so 

 imperceptible, that they have justly been compared to 

 the pile of velvet : these teeth are variously shaped 

 and disposed, but without any of that uniformity which 

 induces us to look to them as organs deserving a 

 primary consideration. In species bearing the closest 

 approximation in all other respects, one will possess 

 teeth, while the other has none*; even when present, 

 they are so very minute as not to be clearly defined, 



* Bagris, Pimelodus,kc. of M. Cuvier are striking instances of the impos. 

 sibility of classing these fishes by their teeth atone. 



