68 
COBITIS. 
The head small ; _ mouth without teeth, but with barbs on the lips 
Body lengthened, with small scales. Three rays in the gill membrane 
the aperture small; ventral fins far behind, and above them a single 
small dorsal fin. Abdominal fishes. ° 
is aberrant 
Carps, and appears to make an approach to that 
of Miipts, thus uniting together species which in their general aspect 
as well as in habits, appear at first sight to have little in common! 
Besides the presence of barbels at the mouth, which assimilates them 
the true Carps, Barhd, and Gudgeon, they also posset 
the strongly. toothed pharyngeal bones, and an air-bladder separated 
into two lobes; which latter is indeed scarcely to be disLrned 
its being of very small size, it is enclosed within a 
double bony ease formed by the third and fourth vertebra;, whereby 
almost concealed from view. It is placed immediately over 
the entrance of the mouth from the gullet, and wa.s only discovered 
by the skilful dissection of an anatomist; and its ofiice appears to be 
more closely connected with the organ of hearing than with the more 
ordinary function of suspending the body in water. It appears from 
an observation by Mr. Maclelland in the “Asiatic Eesearclies,” that 
the bones ot the ear discovered by Professor Weber, as referred to bv 
Blumenbach and Professor Owen, (which in some of this familv 
connect the air-bladder with the organ of hearing in the brain 1 in 
the Loaches occupy the situation of this doubl}'-lobed vessel- and it 
points out the near connection between the Suuridcs and the Loaches 
situlti^on situated in the same relative 
This family of Loaches is also distinguished by an abundant supply 
of muous on the skin, secreted from innumerable but obscure sources^ 
which are not confined to the lateral line, as in the geiiLTir of 
the (^/prmiiit^ but are scattered over the whole surface; and the^use 
hnld"'^nf' P renders them more difficult to bo laid 
hold of, but also answ'ers an important purpose in the animal 
(Economy by preventing the escape of fluids necessary to their existence 
a remark which will apply to many other fishes besides the Loaches’ 
From experiments made by Dr. \V. F. Edwards, brother of Di Sue 
Edwards, it has bcmi found that when a Chub and Gudgeon had 
been wiped dry and weighed alive, although their gills contffiued to 
beat until they were dead, yet by that time they had bst by 
evaporation, the one a fifteenth, and the other a fourteenth of thSr 
whole weight; and other species suffered in about the same proportffin 
But an example in which the body was immersed while the head 
and ptls were exposed to the air, remained alive for nine hours and 
twenty minutes; and how long the Carp will continue alive, and even 
increase in bulk, when wholly enclosed in wet moss, or frequently 
dipped in water has been already noticed. ^ ^ 
