PLATE XCII. 
this fisli is tenacious of' life, it will subsist for some time on small 
fishes and raw meat, if kept In a cold and damp fituation. The spawn, 
ing season is in December and January. It bears tiie character of 
^ fertile, cunning, and voracious fish. 
Tl'e head of this species is large, flattish, and shaped in some degree 
like chat of a toad ; the body is long, and bears a distant resemblance 
to that of an Eel, but is broader in proportion to its length than 
that fish. It is from the latter circumflance this fish has derived 
the trivial English appellation of Eel-pout, and for the same reason 
fire Dutch call it Putael. The colour of the body varies from a 
dark to pale brown, and is marked with greenish olive, fuscous, and 
yellowish, disposed in blotches and bands, and is sometimes thickly 
spotted with blackish. The surface is smooth, the scales being very 
ntinute, and the body covered with a slimy mucous. The teeth are 
Very numerous, small, and disposed in about seven rows in each jaw: 
the lateral line is straight, and parallel with the back : the first dorsal 
fin is of a sub-nangular form, and contains eleven rays; the second 
dorsal fin, which commences immediately behind the firft, continues 
close to the recrion of the tail, and consists of sixty-one rays . in the 
pectoral fin are sixteen rays : the ventral fin, which is ileshy, con- 
tains seven rays, the exterior one of which, is short, and the next 
longer than either of the others ; the anal fin includes fifty rays ; 
and the tail, which is nearly of an oval figure, and very slightly 
pointed, thirtv-five ravs. 
I 
