568 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
there recurs in the Sand-Eels the characteristic, lobate 
process on the intermaxillary bones, though it is re- 
moved farther forward, to about the end of the first 
third ( Ammodytes tobianus ) or fourth (Am. lanceolatus ) 
of the length of the bones. This resemblance may be 
not without importance in a morphological respect. With 
this exception, however, the intermaxillary bones of the 
Sand-Eels are very unlike those of the Codfishes, not 
only in their narrow and terete, almost needle-like 
shape, but also in the more or less complete freedom 
of the nasal processes, which vary considerably in length 
and mobility, and are united to the anterior end of 
the bones only by cartilage and ligaments. The ske- 
leton of the Sand-Eels is also distinguished from that 
of the Codfishes in two other essential respects. Ribs 
are attached to the abdominal vertebral from the very 
first of these bones; and in the caudal fin, which is far 
more differentiated than in the Codfishes, and the base 
of which is composed exclusively of the last two ver- 
tebras and the urostyle, the development of the hypural 
bones is quite as typical as in the rest of the Teleosts. 
Still, though we may find in the above-mentioned 
points of resemblance to the Codfishes and the Gar- 
pikes fully valid reasons of morphological significance 
for the opinion advanced by Gunther and other mo- 
dern writers, that the Sand-Eels are Anacanthine fishes, 
we are not destitute of grounds for a close comparison 
of these fishes with the Eels, though the latter are 
assigned to a far distant place in the system by the 
arrangement of the jaws and shoulder-girdle, as well 
as by their character of Physostomous fishes. This 
comparison is suggested by the scales. Their structure 
most strongly reminds us partly of the Eels and partly 
of Enchelyopus. In the Scandinavian Sand-Eels, as in 
most fishes, and in a manner that especially calls to 
mind the simple scales of our common Flatfishes, the 
anterior part of the scale is quite different from the 
posterior; but here the difference is so marked that the 
former resembles in structure an entire scale of Enche- 
lyopus , with dense, concentric stria?, interrupted by 
grooves radiating from the nucleus, while the latter 
resembles the scales of the Eels, with continuous con- 
centric striae, but with the grooves broken up into 
more or less irregular, round or oblong, small patches. 
On the anterior part of the scale too, the concentric 
striae are about twice as dense (numerous) as on the 
posterior part. The scales of the Sand-Eels also vary 
considerably in form and development, not only in 
different species but even in the same fish. All of 
them are comparatively small and thin. The most 
developed are set on the back of the fish, the largest 
of them, as usual, on the hind part of the body. These 
scales are imbricated, with the posterior part free; and 
they vary in shape from rounded to oblong or lingui- 
form. On the sides of the body the scales lie in der- 
mal folds that run in an oblique transverse direction 
downward and backward from the lateral line proper, 
which is situated high on the back, to the raised dermal 
ridge that coasts each side of the belly, forming a 
boundary between the latter and the sides of the body. 
On the belly itself, between these dermal ridges, the 
folds are less sharply marked, but the scattered (not 
imbricated) scales lie hidden in the skin, in rows that 
run from each dermal ridge obliquely forward and in- 
ward, towards a similar but lower dermal ridge at the 
middle of the belly. The scales which lie in the skin 
are of a broad oval (linguiform) shape, with the hind 
extremity pointed". 
In their manner of life the Sand-Eels remind us 
both of the Garpikes and of the Eels: in the open sea 
they are active and eager in their pursuit of small 
fishes and fry, but now and then they hide themselves 
in the sand to escape their numerous enemies, just as 
the Eels burrow in the sand and mud or creep into 
crevices between the stones. 
The family contains remarkably few forms: among 
the 4 or 5 known species'' only two genera can with 
reason be distinguished. Most of the species belong to 
the Northern Hemisphere, both to the Atlantic and the 
Pacific; but one species occurs in the Indian Ocean. 
a In the Indian species, which Gunther has adopted as the type of a distinct genus ( Bleekeria ), the scales are said to be larger (of 
moderate size), and the said dermal ridges are wanting. 
6 Five distinct species have been described from America. But the Greenland species is undoubtedly identical with our Sand-Launce, 
and Jordan and Gilbert (Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., No. 16, pp. 414 and 909), who have rejected one species as based merely on a description 
of a damaged specimen, advance the opinion that all the others are hardly more than varieties of the Sand-Launce. Brown-Goode, however 
{Fisher., Fisher. Industr. U. S ., sect. I, p. 244), insists upon maintaining a rigid distinction between the European and American Sand-Eels. 
