SHAKP-NOSF.n EEL. 
327 
ever seen, and weighed ten pounds. One whicii was caught 
in Hackney River, is noticed to have been of the weight of 
twenty-seven pounds, and there is a notice of an example taken 
in the Medway, not far from Rochester, which weighed thirty- 
four pounds, and measured six feet in length, with a girth of 
twenty-five inches; but even this is exceeded by an instance 
mentioned by Mr. Daniel, of one taken in Kent, which weighed 
forty pounds, and in length measured five feet nine inches, 
but, strangely, its girth is said to be (only) eighteen inches. 
I possess a printed note of one that weighed sixty-two pounds; 
but I must confess that I regard this as apocryphal. The 
general proportions of this fish are lengthened, flexible, at 
first round, compressed backwards from the vent. The head 
rounded over the top, from a meeting of the muscles of the 
face, tapering forward to the snout, which is moderately slender, 
and at its point are two sharp perforated barbs ; another obscure 
pair of nostrils; under jaw protruding beyond the upper; lips 
fleshy; small teeth in both jaws; cheeks full; eyes small, opposite 
the corner of the mouth. Orifice of the gills small, with a 
soft border, the opening in front of and a little below the root 
of the pectoral fin. Lateral line straight; the surface of the 
skin soft and slimy, so as to render it difficult, even to a 
proverb, to hold the living fish in the grasp. In an example 
twenty-five inches and a quarter in length, the distance from 
the point of the upper jaw to the origin of the pectoral fin 
was three inches, and to the first rays of the dorsal fin eight 
inches; to the vent eleven inches; from which point begins the 
anal fin; the colour of different degrees of intensity of dark 
brown or green, the belly yellowish or white; the cheeks 
lighter; eye pink, red, or yellow; pectoral fin dark blue; other 
fins generally the colour of the body. 
