ANGUILLIFORMES. 275 



some sea-weed on Walden Island, to the north of Spitzbergen, which was con- 

 sidered to belong to this species, but the pectoral fin, though of large size, contained 

 only twenty-eight rays. — Ross, Parry's Polar Voy., p. 199. 



[116.] 1. Ammodytes lancea. (Cuv. ?) Sand launce. 



Family, Anguilliformes. Cuv. Genus, Ammodytes. Linn. 



Ammodytes tobianus. Fabricius, Fuuna Grcenl., p. 140. 



Lance {Ammodytes tobianus). Fenn., Arct. ZvoL, ii., Suppl., p. 113. 



The launces have, as their name imports, an elongated body like the preceding 

 genera, a dorsal fin supported by unbranched jointed rays occupying a great 

 part of the back, an anal of a similar appearance, and a forked caudal sepa- 

 rated from the other two by small spaces. The snout is pointed, the upper jaw 

 extensile, but shorter when the mouth is shut than the lower one. The stomach 

 is fleshy and pointed, and they have neither air-bladder nor pyloric cseca. They 

 feed on worms, and bury themselves in the sand, from whence the fishermen dig 

 them when the tide retires. Pennant states the Ammodytes tobianus of Linnaeus 

 to be plentiful at Newfoundland, and Dr. Mitchill enumerates it among his New 

 York fish ; but as naturalists have until lately confounded two species under the 

 Linnsean name, and the one Pennant has figured as tobianus in British Zoology is 

 the lancea of Cuvier, it remains to be ascertained to which of the species the 

 American fish is to be referred, if indeed it belongs to either. — Neither Pennant 

 nor Mitchill have favoured us with a description of the transatlantic launce. 



Fabricius considers the putsrotok of the Greenlanders to be the Ammodytes 

 tobianus, and from the number of rays in its dorsal and anal being greater than in 

 the lancea of Cuvier, it is probably the species represented by Bloch, pi. 72, f. 2. 

 It frequents parts of the sea having sandy or clayey bottoms, in which it hides its 

 head, and remains quiet with its tail pointing upwards and body spirally twisted. 

 It rarely visits the surface, though it is occasionally observed swimming near pieces 

 of ice, and in the month of May it approaches the beach in company with the 

 capelins. It searches among the sand with its pointed snout for the worms upon 

 which it feeds. 



Fins.— Br. 7; D. G7 ; P. 14; V. ; A. 34; C. 16. Fabricius. 



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