SILURIS, in ichthyology, a genus belonging to the order of fishes abdominalia. The head is naked; the mouth set round with hairy filaments; the bronchiae have from 4 to 14 rays; the ray of the pectoral fins, or the first dorsal one, is prickly, and dentated backwards. There are 21 species, most of them natives of the Indian and American seas. Mr Hasselquist mentions one called the clavus by Linnaeus, and feheitan by the Arabians. It pricks one with the bone of the breast-fin, it is dangerous; and our author saw the cook of a Swedish merchant ship die of the poison communicated by the prick of one of these fish. See ELECTRICITY, no 261.