152 ACANTHOPTERYGII. — OPHIOCEPHALID^. 
in the previous season ; though it is difficult to 
imagine that perfect fishes can sustain life for 
several weeks or months without water. The 
common Hindoos stoutly maintain that they are 
precipitated from the clouds with the falling 
rains. 
These fishes have, in general, the abdominal 
cavity very short, the tail commencing near the 
head, and being much lengthened ; the fins are 
sometimes singularly developed. The genus 
Ophiocephalus has the body cylindrical and length- 
ened, with a head much like that of a snake. 
Genus Macropodus, (Lacep.) 
We find in this small genus an extraordinary 
development of the fins ; the caudal is excessively 
ELEGANT LONG- FIN. 
large, deeply lunate or forked, larger in fact than 
in any other known fish. The dorsal and anal 
have the final soft rays gradually lengthened 
and terminating in filaments ; the ventrals have 
