ANGUILLIFORMES. 267 



MALACOPTERYGII APODES. 



ANGUILLIFORMES. 



[111.] 1. Anguilla rostrata. (Le Sueur.) Beaked-eel. 



Family, Anguilliformes. Cuv. Genus, Anguilla. Thunberq. Sub-genus, Mutaena. Lacep. 

 Muraeua rostrata. Le Sueur, Journ. Ac. Sc. Phil., i., p. 81. An. 1817. 



This order contains only one natural family of which the members have serpen- 

 tiform bodies, clothed with thick, soft skin in which the scales are scarcely percep- 

 tible, their ribs are few, and they have no cseca ; almost all of them possess air- 

 bladders, often of very curious shapes. — The Eel family may be recognised by 

 their small opercula, surrounded concentrically by the gill-rays, and enveloped in 

 the skin, so that the gill-opening is reduced to a small tube whose orifice is far back. 

 Their bodies are long and slender, and their scales, embedded in a fat thick skin, 

 become visible only when this dries up : they all want the ventral fins and pyloric 

 caeca, and their anus is far back. All these fish were included by Linnseus in his 

 great genus Mur^ena, which has been divided and subdivided by subsequent 

 writers, who have introduced many new designations for their groups, and applied the 

 generic name murcena, each after his own fancy, to divisions of very different extent 

 and value. — The eels, anguillce of Thunberg, or murcence of Bloch, are known by 

 the double character of the existence of pectoral fins and of the gill-openings being 

 placed beneath them. Their stomach is a long blind sac, their gut almost straight, 

 and their elongated air-bladder has a peculiar gland in its middle. The extent 

 and form of the vertical fins serve to characterise the minor divisions of anguilla, 

 such as the true eels, or murcence of Lacepede, the congers or congri of Cuvier, 

 and the ophisuri of Lacepede. — The murays, murcence of Thunberg {gymnothorax, 

 Bloch, murcenophis, Lacepede), want the pectorals altogether, their gill-openings 

 are merely a little hole on each side, and their gill-covers and their small feeble 

 rays are so concealed by the skin, that their existence has been altogether denied 

 by able naturalists : their stomach is a short bag, their air-bladder small, oval, and 

 high up in the belly. 



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