362 
WORM PIVERISH. 
be nourished, and therefore shrink into nothing in the same 
manner as the tails of frogs are known to cease to exist. The 
gill openings are large and not hound down by membrane. 
This fish does not exceed five or six inches in length, the 
body round, and of much less size than an ordinary quill, 
tapering to a point from the vent to the extremity; smooth, 
and with little appearance of separate plates. Eye near the 
top of the head, the snout tuimed upward in something of an 
arched form; nostrils close in front of the eye. Tlie colour is 
various in different examples ; in some quite black, with a row 
of pale whitish spots along the back, which near the head are 
distant from each other, but closer together near the tail. In 
some the colour is of various shades of brown, the cheeks 
mottled with defined patches of pale yellow ; which are also on 
the first plates of the body; lines, which appear to separate the 
plates, punctured with dots of pale blue. 
