Description of Fishes from Old Calabar. 
359 
feet at least ; how much more, there are no means of finding 
out, for the submarine peat may have grown near to, or far 
away from, the high-water level ; neither do we know how far 
the submerged peat-banks extend beyond the level of low water. 
From the foregoing facts, it may be inferred that very soon 
after the climate of the Hebrides became such as to admit of 
the growth of vegetation, man emigrated to these shores, 
bringing with him the arts of agriculture and navigation, and 
a religion that induced him to honour the memory of his 
illustrious dead. Since then the tanned vegetable mould has 
accumulated to the height of at least five feet, and also since 
man's advent here the entire land has sunk twelve feet or 
more. These data may, by a more extended investigation, 
form a measure to the time of his arrival ; at present I must 
content myself with having pointed out the facts. 
IV. Description of several Fishes from Old Calabar. By John Cleland, 
M.D., Glasgow. Communicated by William Turner, M.B. 
The specimens now exhibited were given me by our late lamented 
Treasurer, Mr Oliphant, and it was his desire that they should be shown 
to this Society. They come from Old Calabar. They are not in very 
good preservation, but are sufficiently so for the determination of their 
characters. Besides a small specimen of Chromis niloticus (Cuv.), there 
is an Eleotris and four fishes of the family Siluroidei, none of which cor- 
respond with species described in the work of Ciivier and Valenciennes, 
or such other books as I have been able to consult. They may possibly be 
mentioned in recent monographs which I have not had an opportunity of 
seeing. 
1. The Eleotris presents well the characters of that genus, the head 
being much depressed, the body slender, the eyes remote, the gape very 
large for the size of the body, and the lower jaw prolonged beyond the 
upper, so as to give the mouth an upward direction, which may probably 
be looked on as convenient to a fish inhabitmg the muddy parts of the 
water, and preying upon animals swimming overhead. Also, it shows 
well the appendage behind the vent and the ununited ventral fins, which 
distinguish this genus from Gobius. It has no vomerine teeth ; its scales 
are small ; its total length to the tip of the caudal fin is five inches. The 
caudal fin is one inch long and rounded. 
The number of the fin rays is as follows : — first dorsal eight, second 
dorsal ten, caudal thirty-two, anal nine, pectoral sixteen, ventral six. 
2. Of the Siluroid specimens one is a Synodontis, and corresponds 
exactly with a specimen in the British Museum. I believe that it is the 
Synodontis serratus, although the number of its fin rays agrees rather 
with that attributed to S. arahi in the work of Cuvier and Valenciennes. 
The anterior dorsal fin has eight rays, the first of which is, as in all 
the members of the genus, a long and strong slightly curved spine fixed 
at right angles to the body. This spine is toothed on its posterior edge, 
and towards the point anteriorly. 
The posterior or fatty dorsal fin, half an inch high and two inches long, 
VOL. II, 3 A 
