272 



NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



other had apparently exhausted itself in vain attempts to gorge a sea-perch thicker 

 than itself. The individual described by Dr. Harvvood, measuring four feet and a 

 half in length, was captured in the entrance of Davis' Strait, by Captain Sawyer, 

 of the ship Harmony, and the other was taken by Captain Hector Coffin, about 

 midway between the Labrador coast and Ireland, in the 52nd parallel of latitude. 

 A description of the latter, by Dr. Mitchill, is contained in the first volume of the 

 Annals of the Lyceum of New York, but it is unaccompanied by a figure, and the 

 details which are given do not clearly point out the differences between it and Dr. 

 Har wood's ampullaceus. Dr. Mitchill, believing his fish to be the stylephorus 

 ehordatus of Shaw, appears to have intended to retain the specific appellation, and 

 merely to change the generic name to saccopharynx, which having the priority of 

 ophiognathus must be adopted. 



In Dr. Harwood's fish the anal terminates insensibly fourteen inches, and the dorsal twenty 

 and a half, short of the tip of the tail, and there are a few slender filaments springing- from 

 near the termination of the latter ; but in the saccopharynx ehordatus the dorsal and anal 

 extend in form of fillets, or narrow ribands, quite to the tip of the tail, where they unite with a 

 very indistinct caudal, of which Dr. Mitchill could perceive only a few hair-like rays. This 

 author also mentions a whitish longitudinal stripe on each side of the dorsal fin, and another 

 less evident and disappearing sooner, on each side of the anal. About fifty pairs of slender 

 barbels or threads an inch long depended from the dorsal stripes, all the way from the head 

 down the back, and along the tail. As soft barbels go to decay generally sooner than other 

 parts of a fish, the specimen of ampullaceus may have been imperfect in these appendages, 

 and also in the extent of the vertical fins. In ehordatus the tail was sufficiently flexible to 

 allow several knots to be tied on its tip as upon a piece of whip-cord. It had no teeth on the 

 lower jaw, while ampullaceus had a single series of long teeth on the intermaxillaries and 

 lower jaw. Dr. Mitchill's specimen was a female, with large ovaries full of eggs, but the sex 

 of Dr. Harwood's is not mentioned. 



Dimensions. 



Total length .... 

 Length from tip of snout to eyes 



,, „ angle of mouth 



„ gill-openings 



„ „ dorsal 



,, „ anus 



„ anus to tip of tail 



Circumference of inflated body 

 Greatest diameter of ditto 



S. ampull* 



S. ehordatus 



Inches. 



Inches. 



54 



72 



. Oi 



0} 



2* 



3 



. 5J 







18 



11 



. 19 



14 



35 



58 



9 







4 







