292 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



of wide fleshy pectorals that unite anteriorly with one another, or with the snout, 

 and stretch backwards along the sides of the belly as far as the ventrals. The eyes 

 and spiracles are on the dorsal aspect, the mouth, nostrils, and gill-openings on the 

 ventral one. The dorsal fins are most generally situated on the tail. Their brown 

 leathery eggs have a square form with projecting points at the angles. 



'The fuller ray receives its name from the resemblance of its spiny back to the 

 instrument used in dressing cloth. It is called on the Yorkshire coast white liause, 

 from the colour of its throat. Fabricius mentions it as an inhabitant of the deeper 

 southern bays of Greenland, but he is not quite certain whether the fish he describes 

 be the same with that of all the various authors whom he quotes. Indeed, Cuvier 

 remarks that the references of Artedi, Linneeus, and Bloch, in respect to the rays, 

 must be altogether disregarded, as they are in inextricable confusion, arising from 

 the number of rows of caudal spines being considered a principal character, though 

 they vary with age and sex, and cannot therefore distinguish species. Characters 

 founded upon the roundness or sharpness of the teeth are equally vague and un- 

 certain in their application. There are doubtless many fish of this genus on the 

 Newfoundland coast ; but from the circumstances just mentioned the species cannot 

 be quoted with any approach to correctness. 



CYCLOSTOMATA. 



The suckers of Cuvier, or cyclostomes (round mouths) of Dumeril, forming the 

 second family of the cartilaginous fish with fixed gills, have the most imperfect 

 skeletons, not only of their own class, but of all vertebrated animals. Indeed, they 

 approach the annelidce, both in external appearances as well as in many details of 

 structure, some of them closely resembling leeches, and others being more like the 

 red-blooded worms, so that some naturalists have doubted their right to be classed 

 with fish *. Their fleshy circular, or semicircular lip, placed at their anterior ex- 

 tremity, is supported by a cartilaginous ring, formed by the union of the palatine 

 and mandibular bones. The vertebrae are merely incomplete cartilaginous rings, 

 scarcely distinct from each other, and pervaded by a tendinous chord which con- 



* Sir Everard Home considers the Lamprey and Myxine as intermediate between the fishes and vermes, and remarks 

 that they are hermaphrodites, and have much analogy in their mode of respiration with the leeches and the aphrodita 

 aculeata. {Phil. Trans., June, 1815, p. 256.) The Ammoccetes inhabit the mud of streams, and resemble worms still more 

 than the fish Sir Everard Home mentions. They may be said to have no skeleton whatever. 



