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room xt. Their skin is slimy and naked, or with hard 
grains imbedded in it. Their pectoral fins are 
large. They live in shallow water, near coasts, 
and swim with great vivacity. 
The Remorae ( Echeneisldoe ) form the last fa¬ 
mily of the soft-finned, subbrachian fishes. 
They are characterized at once by the top of 
their heads being flattened, and furnished with 
transverse series of cartilaginous plates, some¬ 
what similar to the plates under the toes of the 
Gecko, by which these fish attach themselves 
to ships, rocks, and marine bodies. 
The second group of soft-finned fish consists 
of those which have no ventral fins ( Apoda ). 
The first family of these are the Eels ( Murce - 
nidce\ which have a long slender body, covered 
with small scales sunk into a thick slimy skin. 
Their gill-flaps are small, surrounded by the 
gill-rays, and covered with the skin, only leav¬ 
ing a small tubular opening for the emission of 
the water. This structure enables the fish to 
live a long time out of water. They have been 
divided into several genera, according to the 
teeth and the proportion of the fins. In most 
of the species, the dorsal and anal fins are long, 
and united together; in others they are short, 
and quite separate ( Moringua ); and in some 
they are entirely wanting. In one genus ( Syn - 
branchus ), the gill-flaps only open by a single 
aperture in the under side of the neck. 
The 
