124 Ctenoid Acanthoptebes. FISHES. Polyne.mids. 
tions one weighing nearly six pounds that was obtained 
and ready for market, two ounces, and is considered to 
for £46 sterling. And the consul Asinius Celer, in 
be good isinglass, worth from twenty-five to thirty 
the time of Caligula, paid upwards of £62 for one ; on 
Spanish dollars per pikul. Under the name of Loo-pa 
which Pliny exclaims that had the prodigious Surmullet 
the Chinese traders collect these air-bladders from 
of eiglity pounds, caught by Licinius Mutianus in the 
various parts of the Indian peninsula and Malay archi- 
Eed Sea, been taken in the vicinity of Rome, what 
pelago, to sell in their native country ; and the trade 
wealth the luxurious fish would have brought to the 
yields a quick return and good profit. Among the 
captor! At length Tiberius, in consequence of £2.34 
European merchants the article is named indifferently 
sterling having been given for three Surmullets, made 
isinglass or fish-maws, and is the produce not only of 
a sumptuary law to repiess this extravagance, and to 
the Sele, but of fish of other families; Dr. Cantor, 
tax the provisions brought to market. 
from whom these facts are obtained, enumerates the 
Though the Surmullets did not improve in vivaria. 
following species as yielding fish-maws of good quality: 
and bore confinement ill, the Romans took great pains 
— Lutes heptadactylus ; Polynemus Indicus ; Otolithus 
to rear them ; but the mortality was so great that only 
hiauritus, ruber, argenfevs, maculatus; Johnivs diacan- 
a few survived of several thousands put into a pond. 
thus; Lobotes erate; Arius truncatus; and A. militaris. 
Tills attempt at keeping them was made for the pur- 
In the course of ten years the export of fish-maws 
pose of presenting them alive at banquets, and allowing 
from Penang alone, amounted in value to nearly seventy- 
them to swim down rivulets made to flow under the 
four thousand dollars. Crawfurd says that the {irice 
tables, or to die in glass vessels, so that the guests 
of fish-maws at Bombay is sometimes £14 per huu- 
might enjoy the play of colours exhibited by the fish 
dredweight ; and that the exports from that Presidency 
in the agonies of death. Nothing, says Seneca, is finer 
vary from one thousand five hundi ed to two thousand 
than a dying Surmullet. The struggles it makes against 
death diffuse over the body the most brilliant red tints, 
which end in general paleness ; but in the passage from 
life to death, what beautiful shades of these two colours 
five hundred hundredweight. Bengal exports about 
four thousand pounds, and Madras fifty hundrcidweight. 
are displayed ! Apicius prepared a garum from the 
livers of Surmullets, in which he drowned the fish pre- 
Family VI.— CIRRHITIDS {CirrUtida:). 
sented alive on his table, and then sent it to be cooked. 
The Gurnards, and some other members of the 
Sclerogenid family, have the under rays of the pectorals 
Family V.— POLYNEMIDS. 
detached from the rest, and organized like tapering, 
slender, flexible-jointed fingers, for examining the hot- 
The Polynemidm, equivalent to the Polynemini of 
Bonaparte, are a group of Acanthopteres, with ventrals 
situated on the belly, but attached to the scapulo-cora- 
coid arch by long pubic bones. The principal genus 
consists of the Paradise-fishes — so named because the 
tom of the sea by touch. Cther fishes have sensitive 
tips to some pectoral rays not detached from the rest, 
but probably serving to direct the motions of the animal 
along an uneven bottom, where the eyes being on the 
upper aspect of the head, need such aid. A similar 
function is, perhaps, performed by the mandibular bar- 
under pectoral rays are detached from the rest iu form 
of tapering threads, which are as long or longer than 
the fish itself, and, together with the brilliant colours. 
bels of the Surmullets, and the long, thread-like pectoral 
rays of the Polynemids. The Cirrhitidm are connected 
produce a fancied likeness to the bird of paradise. The 
w'ith these groups, by some of the rays of the pectorals 
family name, of Greek derivation, meaning “ many 
having simple tapering tips extending beyond the mem- 
threads,” has reference to these elongated pectoral raj^s. 
brane. They are Acanthopteres, with a depression at 
The two dorsals are far apart — the second one opposed 
the junction of the spinous and articulated portions ot 
to the anal being also at some distance from the caudal. 
the dorsal, which in some amounts to a complete sepa- 
The ctenoid scales are feebly ciliated, and extend to 
ration into two dorsals. The ventrals of one spine 
the head much reduced in size ; the vertical fins also 
and five branching rays are situated behind the pec- 
are scaly ; with the exception of some serratures on 
the preoperculum there is no armature on the bones of 
the head. The stomach has an obtuse sac-like pro- 
jection below the pylorus. The air-bladder in some 
species is fringed by many projections ; in others it is 
wanting. Gill-openings wide. Branchiostegals six. 
Pentanemus and Galcoides are subordinate groups of 
torals, but their pubic bones stretch forward to the 
coracoids. Sometimes the preoperculum is serrated 
on the edge, more generally it is entire and smooth ; 
and the operculum has often two thin, flat, bony angles, 
but is not armed with strong spines. The jaws are 
formed like those of the Percoids or Scisenoids, with 
terminal mouths, but are in general more protractile. 
the Paradise-fishes. 
Sometimes there is a cluster of teeth on the vomer. 
Some of the Polynemes are highly valued as articles 
but none exist on the palatines. The scales are in 
of food, and among others the Salanghi or Salliah 
some cycloid and smooth ; in others, striated on the 
{Polynemiis tetradactylus), which inhabits the Bay of 
edges, or ciliated. The stomach is csecal, and rather 
Bengal and the coasts of the Malajmn peninsula. The 
small ; the pyloric cseca are few in number, seldom 
Sele, or Ikankurow {Polynemus indicus)^ also a fre- 
exceeding four ; and the air-bladder is simple, or wholly 
quent fish among the Malay islands, has a large 
thick-skinned, silvery air-bladder, with about thirty or 
thirty-six appendages. One of these organs taken from 
absent. 
The genera are — Cirrhites; Cirrhittchys (THeeker) •, Oxycir- 
rhites (id.); Chironemus; Chilodactylus; Nemadactylvs; Latris; 
1 
a fish of from four to six pounds, weighs, when dried 
Mendosoma (Gay) ; and Aplodactylvs, or Haplodactylus. 
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