The natural history of fishes, amphibians, & reptiles, or monocardian animals . d as the most aberrant genus in the present as-semblage. We allude to Rineodon of Dr. Smith, havingall the characters, as it would appear f, of Selachus, butwith the mouth on the top of the snout. As this struc-ture is totally at variance with that of the ordinarysharks, excepting Crossorhinus and Cestracion, we mayfairly conclude, from the location that has been assignedto it, that it has a relation both to those and to the Crossorhinus lobatus M. andH.(^r. 15.)orWattssshark, the mouth is also terminal
The natural history of fishes, amphibians, & reptiles, or monocardian animals . d as the most aberrant genus in the present as-semblage. We allude to Rineodon of Dr. Smith, havingall the characters, as it would appear f, of Selachus, butwith the mouth on the top of the snout. As this struc-ture is totally at variance with that of the ordinarysharks, excepting Crossorhinus and Cestracion, we mayfairly conclude, from the location that has been assignedto it, that it has a relation both to those and to the Crossorhinus lobatus M. andH.(^r. 15.)orWattssshark, the mouth is also terminal,but the sides are fur-nished with broad cirri, or lobes. This singular fish * This supposition is highly probable, and will at once reconcile the oppo-site statements of Cuvier and Dr. Smith,t Mag. of Nat. Hist. No. xiii. p. 37. second series. CENTRING. SCYLLIUM. 143 certainly does not belong to the Squatince, or even tothe same genus, strictly so termed, as Dr. SmithsRineodon; for the teeth are large, acute, and seem moreto resemble those of our Squalus; both of the dorsal. fins are placed behind the ventral; the tail is long; thecaudal fin unequally and irregularly lobed: it onlyagrees with Rineodon in its terminal mouth, and thesituation of the branchial openings, which appear verylarge, and are all placed before the pectoral fin. Whe-ther this singular fish naturally intervenes between theZyganince and Pristis, or whether it is the most aber-rant type of the Squalince (in which case it wouldrepresent Squatina and Rineodon), are questions which,in the present confused state of this family, cannot bedetermined. (124.) We now enter on the sub-family of Cen-tring, or spiracled sharks, to which we are conducted,as before observed, by the sub-genus Selachus, which hasthe general structure of Lamna, with the spiracles suf-ficiently large to become obvious, although, when com-pared to the sharks now before us, they still remainvery small. (125.) The first genus we shall notice in
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