£00 v M U R 
Ihorter, the eye larger, the fiefli firmer, and the fat more 
delicate ; the colour varies from black to brown, dirty 
grey, and reddilh. It is caught from Hock to Vallequier, 
but feldom higher up. Noel thinks the agreeable tafte 
of the flelh is derived from the plenty of good food which 
it finds at the mouth of the Seine, or the quantity of 
young fmall filh in the parts of the fea which runs into 
it; he fays it refembles in flavour the eel caught in the 
Euras, called breteau. The gnifeaux fometimes go in 
flioals unmixed with any other lpecies or variety of eel; 
at other times they are caught in equal quantities among 
the common eels : five hundred were drawn up unmixed 
in one net, near Orcheb-callie, by a filherman of Vil- 
lequier. 
£. The dog-eel has a larger head than the common eel, 
but broader at the fame time, and flatted ; the eyes are 
large. The filli is pretty big, but it is not a bandfome 
variety, and the flefh is ftringy. It is very greedy, and 
hence its-name : it devours the' fmall filh it finds in the 
nets, tears the nets, and gnaws the iron wires belonging 
to the lines : when caught with a hook, the hook is ge¬ 
nerally found in the gullet, while the common eel is 
generally caught by the front part of the palate. 
2. Murtena conger, the conger-eel: lateral line made 
up of white dots ; the anal, tail, and dorfal, fins, united. 
There are ten rays in the membrane of the gills, nineteen 
in the peftoral fin, 306 in the united fins of the anus, 
tail, and back. The conger differs from the common 
eel, in having the eyes larger in proportion ; the irides of 
a bright filvery colour, the lateral line marked with a 
row of fmall fpots; the edges of the dorfal and anal fin 
black, and in having a greater number of bones. See 
Ichthyology, Plate I. fig. 1. vol. x. It often grows 
to an enormous fize; fome are taken eighteen inches in 
circumference, and ten feet long, weighing upwards of 
air hundred pounds. A fifhery of congers eftablifned at 
Mount’s Bay, in Cornwall, forms a very confiderable 
article of commerce. They are annually exported to 
Spain and Portugal in a dried ftate, where they are ground 
down into a kind of powder, and are ufed in enriching 
their foups. They are caught by a fort of line called a 
baiter, baited with pilchards; when taken, they are flit 
up, that a part of the fat may exude from them before 
they are faked, and fit for ufe; and fo confiderable is the 
quantity of juice which thus efcapes, that a fifh of a hun¬ 
dred-weight will not dry to above twenty-five pounds. 
Pennant fuppofes that a fifhery of congers might be 
eflablifhed with advantage in the Hebrides, could the 
averfion of the natives to this tribe be overcome. This 
fpecies is diltinguifhed by the fame voracity as the former; 
it devours other fifli, crabs, and even carcafes. The mode 
of its generation is probably the fame with the common 
eel; but, however this be, it is certainly prolific, for the 
number of its young that annually afcends the Severn 
is prodigious; they are there called elvers, and during 
the month of April they fwarm in fuch flioals, that they 
are thrown out upon the fliore with fmall lieves made of 
hair, and fixed to the end of a pole; a man will in this 
manner take out as many at one tide as will fill a bulliel. 
3. Murasna 'ophis, the fea-ferpent: body flender, with 
dark round fpots (in twos) on a white ground; tail 
naked, or unprovided with any fin. There are ten rays 
in the membrane of the gills, ten in each-peftoral fin, 
fixty-nine in the anal, and 136 in the dorfal; thefe fins 
are high, and beautifully tranfparent. See the Plate, 
fig- 2 •. 
This and the following are made a diftindl genus by 
Cepede, under the name of Ophifurus, or ferpent-tail, 
becaule they have no fin at the extremity of the tail. 
The body is long, round, fmooth, and covered with mu¬ 
cilage. Without the fins, it would exactly refemble a 
fnake. The head is fmall; the mouth large; the jaws 
of equal length, each armed with two rows of fliarp teeth 
Shutting into each other, and thereby enabling the animal 
lo hold his prey very fait; upon the upper jaw are four 
IE N A. 
holes, the two in front of a cylindrical Ihape. The eyes 
are fmall; the pupil black, iris yeliow. On the back are 
many brown fpots, of an indeterminate form. The belly 
is fliort, to that the anus is much nearer to the head than 
to the tail; the fnout is blunt. The lateral line runs 
along the middle of the bod}'; it is compofed of little 
black rings, with large brown fpots all the way. The 
pedoral fin is fmall; below this, is the aperture of the 
gills as in the eel; the dorfal fin begins near the head, 
and reaches within two or three inches of the tip of the 
tail; the rays of both are Ample, and are united by a thin 
tranfparent membrane. This fifli haunts the Eaft Indian 
leas ; Linnaeus defcribes it as natural to thofe of Europe ; 
and Forlkal faw it in Arabia. The form of its mouth 
places it in the voracious tribe; it lies commonly among 
the lea-weed, where it catches the polypes and little filh. 
It grows to a pretty confiderable fize : Lifter, who firifc 
delcribed it, fays it is three feet long; Leguat fpeaks of 
one that he found near the ifland of St. Maurice, which 
feems to have been this fpecies, and it weighed fixty 
pounds ; he cooked it, but found it very bad eating, as it 
made both him and his fellow-travellers lick. 
4. Murasna ferpens, the fnake-eel: tail ending in a 
point, and naked ; body round. There are lixteen rays 
in each pedoral fin, and ten in the membrane of the 
gills. This fpecies is larger than the preceding; it attains 
a length of fix feet and a half. It is found in lalt water 
about the Campagna di Roma, and other parts of the 
Mediterranean and the fouth of Europe. It was known 
to Ariftotle, and by him and moft of the ancients was 
called fca-J'erpent. It refembles the ophis in its manners 
and habits, but has not thofe round or oval fpots which 
diftinguilh that fpecies. It is yellowilh on the back, white 
on the belly 5 the dorfal and anal fins are edged with 
black. 
5. Murtena fafciatus, the banded fnake-eel: tail naked ; 
twenty-five tranfverl'e ltripes or bands, broader than the 
intervals between them; the upper-jaw longeft; fnout 
rather pointed. This is given by Cepede from a colledtion 
brought out of Holland to Paris. Head black; eyes 
veiled with a tranfparent membrane ; body very thin, 
and fomewhat comprefl'ed ; the p.edtoral fins rounded, 
but very fmall. 
6. Murcena guttata, the fpotted eel : glaucous fpeckled 
with black; a large black fpot on each fide near the head. 
Only fix rays in the membrane of the gills, forty-three in 
the dorfal, nine in the peftoral, thirty-fix in the anal, ten 
in the tail. This fpecies was firft delcribed by Forlkal, 
who met with it in Arabia. The lower jaw is longeft,'as 
in the common eel, which it much refembles ; but there 
is a large callofity riling between the eyes, and the num¬ 
ber of rays in the fins differs : the dorfal and anal fins 
reach to the beginning of the caudal. This filh is of a 
lea-green colour with a great number of black fpots, of 
which the largeft are near the head on each fide. 
7. Murasna myrus, the fltarp-nofed eel: fnout pointed.; 
fins white edged with black. The membrane of the gills 
has ten rays, the peCtoral-fins lixteen each. This fpecies 
has been found in the Mediterranean. The fnout is 
pointed ; round the jaws and in the middle of the palate 
there are two or three rows of fmall teeth, there are two 
very fliort tentacula or feelers at the upper lip. White 
ltripes, croflwife and lengthwife, appear on the head ; the 
dorfal, anal, and tail, fins, are fo united, that the number 
of rays belonging to each cannot be diltinguilhed ; they 
are quite white, edged with glcfiy black. 
( 3 . Forlkal’s rnureeiui tota cinerea, which he fuppofes to 
be a variety of this fpecies, is afli-colour in its whole fur- 
face ; and is faid to contain a poifon in its head. If this 
point Ihould be eitablilhed, it muff certainly be a fpecies 
entirely diftiniSt from all the eels hitherto known. 
8. Mursena casca, the blind eel: no fins; the fnout very 
fliarp. This lpecies is found in the Mediterranean near 
thecoaft of Barbary. The body is anguiliform, but totally 
deftitute of fins, l'o that it feems cut off' entirely from the 
a. dal's 
