224 TlMEHRI. 
of the body ; trunk-fishes with their box-like body ; 
globe-fishes or sea-porcupines, blown out and covered 
with spines ; the quaint-looking sea-horse, and the 
almost equally quaint-looking pipe-fish ; the flying-fish 
(ExoccetuSy Barbadian specimen) noted for its long flying 
leaps ; siluroids of many kinds and sizes though destitute 
of their rich colouring and their streamers ; the pacu, 
far-famed for its delicacy of flavour, though less so than 
its relative the salmon of the northern regions; the 
cuffum and others, though the specimens are not always 
satisfactory. A large jew-fish is shewn by the window 
suspended from the side of the building. 
Fishes, as a group, are well characterised by the pre- 
sence of scales, fins, and gills. Scales, however, are often 
absent ; and gills are sometimes of small importance owing 
to the swim-bladder becoming a functional lung, as in the 
curious mud-fishes of Australia, America, and Africa — 
fishes that thus make an approach to many forms of the 
class of frogs, being able to exist for long periods out of 
water, and to take overland journeys of long distances. 
All fishes produce eggs or are oviparous^ though, in a 
few forms, the eggs are retained in the body and there 
hatched, the fishes then being termed ovo-viviparous. 
Commonly the term viviparous is applied in such cases, 
but it is preferable to retain this term for the mammals 
where «ggs proper are not usually produced. 
At the bottom of the case are shewn a few forms of 
invertebrates, that is, animals destitute of a backbone. 
The crabs are colonial specimens, but the lobsters are 
Barbadian. An interesting series is shewn of fresh- 
water prawns (PalssmonJ which closely resemble cray- 
fishes ; one, a monster, from Leguan ; another smaller 
