Page:An Introduction to the Study of Fishes.djvu/59



the body of a fish four parts are distinguished: the head, trunk, tail, and the fins; the boundary between the first and second being generally indicated by the gill-opening, and that between the second and third by the vent. The form of the body and the relative proportions of those principal parts are subject to much variation, such as is not found in any other class of Vertebrates. In fishes which are endowed with the power of steady and more or less rapid locomotion, a deviation from that form of body, which we observe in a perch, carp, or mackerel, is never excessive. The body forms a simple, equally-formed wedge, compressed or slightly rounded, well fitted for cleaving the water. In fishes which are in the habit of moving on the bottom, the whole body, or at least the head, is vertically depressed and flattened; the head may be so enormously enlarged that the trunk and tail appear merely as an appendage. In one family of fishes, the Pleuronectidæ or Flat-fishes, the body is compressed into a thin disk; they swim and move on one side only, which remains constantly directed towards the bottom, a peculiarity by which the symmetry of all parts of the body has been affected. A lateral compression of the body, in conjunction with a lengthening of the vertical and a shortening of the longitudinal axis, we find in fishes moving comparatively slowly through