438 COLONEL MONTAGU ON NEW AND RARE 



mens are in high preservation in spirits, they af- 

 ford an opportunity of critically examining them, 

 and enable me to correct some mistakes into which 

 Mr Pennant had inadvertently fallen, probably 

 from the necessity of describing from a bad spe- 

 cimen. The most material defects in the origi- 

 nal description, are the want of pectoral and 

 caudal fins, as they form leading generic charac- 

 ters, and bring it nearer to the Muraena. The 

 following characters would be more appropriate : 



Generic* 



Head small : body laterally compressed, and ex- 

 tremely thin : fins, dorsal, anal, and caudal, 

 united : branchial aperture small, transverse. 



Leptocephalus, Granov. Zooph. p. 13. f. 3. — Cepede, 

 11. 143.— Gme/. p. 1160.— Shawy Zool. iv. p. 84. 

 t 10.-- Brit. Zool. new edit. iii. p. 212. t. 29. 



The largest specimen is about six inches in 

 length, and half an inch broad; the thickness 

 does not exceed the sixteenth part of an inch : 

 the head is small, but is nearly in a straight line 

 with the back : the jaws nearly equal in length : 

 the teeth numerous, and all incline forwards : 

 eyes large ; irides silvery. The dorsal fin does 

 not extend the whole length of the back, as ori- 

 ginally described, but commences at nearly one- 

 third of the length of the fish from the head ^ 



