FROG-FISHES. 
173 
considerably in advance of the pectorals. These 
latter then, representing the fore-legs of quadru- 
peds, are in the Frog-fishes so formed as to bear 
no slight resemblance, both in form and function, 
to feet. The bones of the wrist on which the 
fin is jointed are greatly lengthened, and pro- 
jected beyond the skin of the body, and so closely 
resemble the bones of the fore-arm (the radius 
and the ulna)^ as to have been mistaken for them 
by a distinguished naturalist. The ventrals have 
a similar structure ; and both are palmated in 
such a manner as to present a resemblance to the 
webbed foot of an aquatic fowl. The freedom 
given to the fins by their protrusion and their 
form enable them to be used as hands and feet ; 
and the facility with which these fishes can crawl 
by means of their mimic limbs, we have personally 
witnessed in a little pelagic species of Anten- 
narius, that inhabits the fields of floating weed 
in the gulf-stream of the northern Atlantic. 
Over the broad yellow surface of these floating 
fields, that look like parched meadows, the little 
Frog-fish crawls and disports itself, pushing aside 
the tangled stems with its foot-like ventrals, and 
clambering hither and thither with the energy and 
freedom, of a quadruped. 
But the power of crawling out of the water 
would be of little avail to a fish, unless it were 
endow^ed at the same time with some faculty by 
which its respiration could be maintained during 
its absence from the water, its breathing medium. 
In order to extract the oxygen needful for 
the revivification of the blood, it is indispen- 
sable that the minutely ramified filaments of the 
gills, the breathing organs, be kept moist, for 
