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THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID

ilOLOGY
UBRARY

rrederici A-Heath,Eagra.ver.

MaiOl &PolvHaiik,Pkoto1

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London, Jdlra. Van. Voorst, Paternoster How, 1859.

SECOND SUPPLEMENT

TO

THE FIRST EDITION

OF THE

H I S T 0 K I

BRITISH FISHES,

THE LATE WILLIAM YABBELL, V.P.L.8., F.Z.S.

BEING ALSO A FIKST SUPPLEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION.

ILLUSTRATED WITH WOODCUTS.

EDITED BY SIR JOHN RICHARDSON, C.B.

LONDON:
JOHN VAN VOORST, PATERNOSTER ROW.

M.DCCC.LX.

G7VZ

•tOLCKSt
UBRAW

PREFACE

SUPPLEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION,

THIS Supplement is published for the use of the pur-
chasers of Mr. Yarrell's First and Second editions of
his History of British Fishes, and contains all the
species that have been discovered in the British Seas
since the year 1839, as far as they have come to the
knowledge of the Editor.

Lancrigg, Grasnaere, 1859.

NAMES OF FISHES IN THIS SUPPLEMENT.

FIRST VOLUME.

Place in

First Second

Edition. Edition.

Fabricius' Sea-Bullhead .... After page 69 84

Couch's Sea-Bream ,,103 119

TheBogue „ 116 132

The Dotted Mackerel ,, 133 150

TheGermon ,, 142 159

ThePelamid ,,142 159

TheDerbio ,, 142 159

Bank's Oar-fish .... ,,190 223

SECOND VOLUME.

The Sail-fluke After page 250 341

The Connemara Sucker 279 376

The Common Sturgeon . . . . . ,, 359 474

The Gray Notidanus „ 386 517

The Petromyzon Jurse .... ,, 472 628

MEMOIR OF WILLIAM YARRELL.

WILLIAM YARRELL was a man rather below the middle
height, having a robust, well-knit frame, a sagacious
and pleasing countenance, and frank and agreeable man-
ners. His aspect was that of a stout yeoman, such as those
who in times past have contributed with head and hand
to elevate their native England to its present rank among
the nations; or rather his demeanour may be said to have
indicated exactly what he was in fact — a citizen who had
thriven in the greatest of commercial cities, but who,
strong in native honesty and self-respect, had passed un-
scathed through the perils of money-making, his cheerful
countenance bearing no lines traced by the thirst of gain
or the debasing passion for hoarding : on the contrary, his
mild but fearless eye, and his open forehead, showed,
even to a stranger, a man at peace with himself and with
his fellow men.

He was born on the 3rd of June, 1784, in the parish
of St. James's, where his home continued to be for the
seventy-two years of his life. In Duke Street his
father and uncle carried on in partnership the business
of newspaper agents. On the death of his father, his
mother removed to a private residence in Great Ryder

VOL. I. @HdSnpp.) b

vi MEMOIR OF WILLIAM YARRELL.

Street, and there the son lived with her, and during that
time was joined in trade with his cousin, then carrying
on the business of their late fathers at the north-east
corner of Little Ryder Street, to which house it had
been removed ; and whither, on Edward Jones ceasing
to reside, William Yarrell went, and continued to dwell,
till death.* A domicile so permanent offers no field for
stirring incident, but it is salutary to contemplate the
career of a man, who, possessing the ability, judg-
ment and industry that lead to success, and placed by
the accidents of birth and connection among the busy
throng of the metropolitan worshippers of wealth, de-
liberately chose the safer middle path of competency, —
in an age when money has power to raise its possessor to
a seat among the law-givers of the land, and the art of
acquiring it is considered in the social estimate of the
day as equivalent to high breeding, education and virtue,
— when, in short, the cry " get money, per fas aut nefas"
has gone far towards sapping the national character for
honesty, and the vaunted good faith of the British mer-
chant is in danger of becoming a myth.

The following brief narrative is compiled from obitu-
ary notices published immediately after Mr. Yarrell's
death by several of his intimate and attached friends —
Professor Bell, President of the Linnean Society, Dr.
R. G. Latham, Edward Newman and Lovell Reeve,
Esqs. These gentlemen have referred mainly to Mr.
Yarrell's scientific pursuits, and have mentioned few or
no particulars of his private life, nor is the compiler of
this memoir able to supply the deficiency. But he, who
attained the length of days usually allotted to man, and
survived all his brothers and sisters as well as father and

* A year before that event, he had ceased to have any connection with the
business, having retired in favour of Messrs. Joseph and Charles Clifford.

MEMOIR OF WILLIAM YARRELL. vil

mother, though he never married, must have had the
depths of his sensitive nature often stirred by the breaches
made by death in the circle of his relatives and friends,
even should no tenderer tie have been untimely snapt
asunder. That such was the case may be inferred
from the feeling which only two years before his death
prompted him to transfer to the album of his relatives,
the Misses Pallett of Dover, the subjoined lines from
Wordsworth : —

' ' first and last,

The earliest summoned and the longest spared,
Are here deposited."

The following is the marriage certificate of his pa-
rents : —

" At Bermondsey Parish Church, Surrey, Francis
Yerrall, of this Parish, Bachelor, to Sarah Blane, of this
Parish, Spinster. By Banns, 26 June, 1772.

Present, William Hawkins,
John Beszant."

Subsequently his father transposed the e and a in
writing his surname, as appears by this register of
birth :—

" St. James's, Westminster, June £7, 1784. William
Yarrell, son of Francis and Sarah, born June 3rd."

Of his father's origin, except that he was born the
10th of February, 1749, married the 26th of June, 1772,
died the 25th of March, 1794, was the eldest of seven
brothers and sisters, the children of Francis Yer-
rall, born in 1727, died the 5th of January, 1786, and
of Sarah his wife, born in 1719, died the 12th of Decem-
ber, 1800, — nothing can now be ascertained ; and it is
believed that the son never knew his father's native
place exactly, though he used to think that he came
from Bedfordshire, where the surname is a common

b 2

Vlll MEMOIR OF WILLIAM YARRELL.

one, but is spelt in various ways. The second Francis
Yerrall is reported to have been a proud man. Sarah
Blane is said by a relative to have been born of parents
who were small farmers at Bayford in Herts, and to
have been remarkable for nothing but a tartness of
temper, wholly unlike to that of her distinguished
son. If the dispositions of the mind are, as has been
supposed, like the constitution of the body and the
lineaments of the countenance, in some degree here-
ditary, and that consequently pride and quickness of
temper descended to the offspring of Francis and Sarah
Yarrell, William, the ninth-born child, was fortunately
endowed at the same time with so much firmness and
good sense as to be able to keep his passions under con-
trol and to become remarkable in after-life for modesty
and urbanity.

In his boyhood William Yarrell occasionally visited
his maternal relatives at Claypits Farm, Bayford, and
there, doubtless, his love of rural scenery originated ;
but his earliest tastes for Natural History seem to have
been fostered by his mother, who took him with her in
the frequent excursions she made to Margate, then a
favourite resort of Londoners. Their conveyance was
the usual one of the time, the Margate Hoy, and young
Yarrell found amusement on the sands in picking up
sea-weeds, which he and his sister afterwards laid out
on paper. He also collected shells and other marine
productions.

His school days were passed at the large scholastic
establishment kept by Dr. Nicholas at Ealing, where he
acquired the character of a quiet, studious boy. The
late General Sale, G. S. Heales, Esq., of Doctors' Com-
mons, who survived him but a few months, and Mr.
Edward Jones, were his fellow pupils, the last-mentioned

MEMOIR OF WILLIAM YARRELL. IX

being his cousin, the son of his father's partner, and his
own future associate in the business carried on in Ryder
Street. He had also for playmates his relatives, Mr.
Bird and Mr. Goldsmith.

In 1802, being then in the eighteenth year of his age,
he entered the banking-house of Herries, Farquhar and
Co., as a clerk, but shortly afterwards left that employ,
and returned to his father's business. Previous to this
event his love of angling had made him acquainted with
the streams in the vicinity of London, and the perusal
of Izaac Walton's fascinating colloquies had taught him
to combine practical philosophy with that pastime. In
the course of this pursuit he afterwards often associated
with a Londoner of maturer years, an old sportsman
named Adams, with whom he was wont to angle under
Putney bridge and in other parts of the Thames when
the calls of business did not press. Under the guidance
of this early friend he acquired the art of shooting, and
as it was his custom throughout life to pursue zealously
whatever he undertook, he became a proficient in the
management of the gun. This led to an intimacy with
George Manton, the well-known gun-maker of Bond
Street, and with Shoobridge, the hatter of Bond Street,
known among sporting men as an unerring shot. Yar-
rell, who was thought by some to be the better shot of
the two, became a member of the Old Hats Club, and
was a successful competitor at shooting matches near
London. He was constantly in friendly consultation
with George Manton when any new form of breech or
lock in a fowling-piece was to be tried. At a later time
he shot game in Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire over
different manors which he rented in conjunction with
his friend Wortham. His exploits with the gun are still
remembered in the neighbourhood of Royston, and the

X MEMOIR OF WILLIAM YARRELL.

same healthful exercise led him also frequently into
other localities. His tastes, says one of his friends, were
those of a Londoner, whom the rus in urbe suited better,
perhaps, than the unmixed country. They were those
of Izaac Walton, citizen and angler, rather than those
of the full and perfect yeoman.

These amusements of his earlier life led to his ac-
quiring an intimate knowledge of the habits of our
native birds and fishes, their food and migrations, his
observation of the objects that engaged his attention
being as accurate as it was keen. They were not, how-
ever, the only occupations in which he sought relief from
the monotony of business, for in 1817 he studied Che-
mistry at the Royal Institution. Before he attained
middle life he engaged in the systematic study of
Zoology, and pursuing it in the intervals of business
with his accustomed application, he gradually gave up
field sports, and it is believed that for thirty years before
his death he handled neither rod nor gun.

In 1823 he commenced noting the appearance of
strange and rare birds, and in 1825 he lent his aid to
Bewick by sending him scarce British birds to figure.
He also presented a collection of the tracheae of water-
birds to the Royal College of Surgeons. His own
museum at this time contained a series of British Birds
and their eggs, and he now cultivated the society of
scientific men, among whom he had made the acquaint-
ance of Sir William Jardine, Bart., and P. J. Selby,
Esq., of Twizel House, who were then engaged in pub-
lishing their respective works on British Ornithology.
In November of the same year he was admitted a Fellow
of the Linnean Society, and in 1826 he became one of
the original members or founders of the Zoological
Society. Next year he was chosen to be one of the

MEMOIR OF WILLIAM YARRELL. XI

Council of the Medico-Botanical Society, and hencefor-
ward his readiness to oblige, the clearness of his under-
standing, and his business habits, coming to be known,
his services in the management of the societies to which
he belonged were in constant requisition. " It was only
with reluctance, and in compliance with established
rules," says Professor Bell, " that his name was omitted
from the council lists of either the Linnean or Zoologi-
cal Societies." Of the latter he was occasionally Audi-
tor, for a time Secretary, and frequently one of its Vice-
Presidents. He was also a warm supporter, and for a
long time treasurer, of the Entomological Society. On
the death of Mr. Forster, in 1849, he was elected Trea-
surer of the Linnean Society, and continued to fill that
office and to be one of its Vice-Presidents until his
death. With respect to the Royal Society, the following
is the statement of Professor Bell, who was fully cog-
nizant of the circumstances : " Many years since, long
before the present plan of selecting a certain number of
candidates by the Council was adopted, Mr. Yarrell was
proposed as a Fellow, and his certificate signed and
suspended. At that time the Council had nothing what-
ever to do with the election nor with the recommenda-
tion of the candidates. Mr. Yarrell's scientific character
was not so well known and appreciated as it has since
become. A gentleman, long since deceased, who would
afterwards have gladly recalled the act, expressed some
objection to his being elected, and his certificate was,
from a feeling of delicacy on Mr. Yarrell's part, with-
drawn ; but subsequently, since the present system has
been in action, the writer of this notice, with the full
concurrence of many members of the Council, who were
most desirous of his election, drew up a certificate in his
favour, and obtained some signatures before he men-

xii MEMOIR OF WILLIAM YARRELL.

tioned the subject to Mr. Yarrell, hoping that when he
knew such a step had been taken he would consent to be
put in nomination. On being informed, however, of this
movement, which there is no doubt would have met with
the unanimous approval of the Council, he declined the
honour solely on the ground of advancing age, and his
increasing inability to avail himself of the advantages of
the position."

The subjoined list of Mr. Yarrell's publications affords
evidence of his industry and the variety of his zoological
studies. He became an author evidently from the love
of his subjects, and being in no haste to publish until he
had duly investigated the matter in hand and brought his
clear judgment to bear on the evidence before him, his
writings on Natural History soon acquired that value
among scientific men which simple and truthful narra-
tive always commands. His great works on the Birds
and Fishes of Britain are quoted as authorities in all the
scientific circles of Europe and America, and are models
of local Faunas, both on account of the strictness with
which doubtful species are noted or rejected, as well as
for the completeness of the lists gained by unwearied
diligence and inquiry in every direction. The synonymy
is elaborated with care and skill, and the illustrations,
liberally provided by his friend and publisher, are worthy
of the works, which is no mean praise. Mr. Yarrell and
Mr. Van Voorst were first brought together by their
mutual friend, the late Mr. Martin, the librarian of the
Duke of Bedford, and the conjunction was a most fortu-
nate one for the progress of British Zoology, a series of
unrivalled illustrated monographs having originated there-
from. Mr. Yarrell's inquiries into the changes of plu-
mage of hen Pheasants and of birds generally, his dis-
sertations on the horny tip of the bill of young chickens,

MEMOIR OY WILLIAM YARRELL. Xlll

on the production and migration of Eels, on the gesta-
tion of eggs by the male Pipe-fish, his investigations
into the route pursued by American birds in their casual
visits to England, and numerous other passages of his
works, show much originality of thought and a careful
examination of facts.

One of his friends * says, " There was one trait in the
character of Mr. Yarrell which must not be passed
over in silence, a trait wThich no one was better ac-
quainted with than myself, and that was his extreme
readiness to afford information. Often have I had occa-
sion to appeal to him in difficulties about specific
character or points of economy, and from the very
moment of mentioning the doubt or the object of
inquiry, his whole attention was absorbed by it ; books,
specimens, memory, every auxiliary was at his finger-
ends ; and no sacrifice of time or trouble was too great
for him to make ; neither was the subject ever left unde-
cided while diligence or a disposition to teach could
throw on it a single ray of light. No other subject
seemed to occur to him during the investigation ; he had
no other occupation ; that one inquiry was, for the time,
the object of his life. His power of concentrating his
attention on a single subject was most extraordinary, and
more extraordinary still was the facility with which that
concentrated attention was turned to any subject ; he
used it after the fashion of a burning glass, casting the
focus wherever he pleased. This faculty was at the ser-
vice of all ; and the attention of which I speak thus
gratefully from personal experience was given to every
truth-seeking inquirer." — Zoologist, 5258.

Another friend -J- writes as follows : " Mr. Yarrell's

* Edward Newman, Esq., Editor of the Zoologist.
t Dr. R. G. Latham.

xiv MEMOIR OF WILLIAM YARRELL.

purely intellectual character is seen in his works. The
part which the author himself always took most credit
for, was the geographical distribution of birds. He con-
sidered that in treating it as he had done, he smuggled
in a certain amount of geography under the garb of
ornithology. For the high qualities of accuracy, terse-
ness of description, and felicity of illustration, they speak
for themselves." — Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal,
1856.

So much for the excellence of his works on Zoology,
of which the best tests are the continually-increasing
demand for them at home after twenty-two years' circula-
tion, and the frequency and confidence with which they
are quoted by naturalists abroad. With regard to Mr.
YarrelPs character as a man, the following extracts from
the obituary notices referred to, will show the estimation
in which he was held by those who were most intimately
acquainted with his conduct in private and public life.
" Strong social instincts," says a keen observer of men
and manners, " geniality of temper, warmth of heart
(exhibited in an extreme fondness for children), made him
loved, even as his simple and straightforward indepen-
dence of character made him respected. His advice, too,
was always valued, freely asked and freely given, for his
mind was observant, active, practical, and wholly un-
clouded by fancies or prejudices ; his knowledge varied
and accurate. Indeed he was essentially a reliable man,
knowing what he knew well, and caring to undertake
nothing that he was likely to fail in. For this a strong
will and perseverance is needed. It was strong enough
to keep a warm temper in thorough control ; for Mr.
Yarrell, knowing what was due to himself, knew also
what was due to others. He helped many, not only
with his advice but by his purse, ever valuing money for

MEMOIR OF WILLIAM YARRELL. XV

its uses only, never for its own sake ; moderate (as a
man of business) in his aims, though attentive to what
he undertook ; hating waste, yet never ambitious of accu-
mulation." . . . . " For many years his house was
familiar to all naturalists, and to visitors of every rank
from the country, not to mention foreigners, to whom
the reputation of one of the soundest of living zoolo-
gists was well known, and who never visited it without
being struck by the kind and communicative manners of
its hospitable inmate." ...»** His habits, angler
and ornithologist as he was, were eminently those of a
Londoner. He loved glees, and sung them well, and at
one time of his life was a frequent attendant at the
theatres."— Dr. R. G. Latham.

The testimony of Professor Bell, who knew him well,
is as follows : — " In speaking of Mr. Yarrell's intellec-
tual and social qualities, it is difficult to do them justice
without danger of appearing hyperbolical. His judg-
ment was clear and sound, his appreciation of the value
of facts and of evidence most accurate, his advice always
practical and thoughtful. His truthfulness and simple,
heartedness were even child-like, his temper gentle, his
heart loving and affectionate, and he was liberal and
charitable almost to the verge of imprudence. A kind-
lier spirit never lived. His friendships were sincere and
lasting, and only changeable on discovery of the worth-
lessness of the subject, and then how hard was he to
believe the painful truth ! If ever man realized the
beautiful apostolical definitions of Charity, it was
William Yarrell. There were, indeed, in Mr. Yarrell's
character many points of resemblance to that of Izaac
Walton and of Gilbert White. The same charming
bonhomie and truthfulness and simplicity and elegant
taste as in the former ; and the close and accurate obser-

xvi MEMOIR OF WILLIAM YARRELL.

vation and clear and graphic description which charac-
terize the writings of the latter."

A third friend (Mr. Lovell Reeve) mentions the follow-
ing traits of character : — " Notwithstanding his retired
manners, Mr. Yarrell was a frequent diner-out, and a
jovial companion at table. He sang a capital song, and
was a constant attendant at the theatre, generally se-
lecting, with the gusto of a dilettante, the front row of
the pit. In the days of the elder Mathews, he would
manage to get the songs of the great mimic, in spite
of the rapidity of their utterance, by taking down the
alternate lines one night, and filling in the others on
the next. A song of Dibdin's we heard him sing only
recently, with admirable spirit and pathos. He seldom
missed the Linnean Club dinners and country ex-
cursions, and was at all times the liveliest of the
party."

By the methodical distribution of his time Mr.
Yarrell was enabled, without neglecting his business
concerns, to assist in the management of the scientific
societies of which he was a member, and to carry on his
zoological inquiries and publications. His enjoyment
of social life was combined with temperance ; and being
blessed with a sound constitution he possessed con-
tinuous good health up to the year 1853, when some
premonitory symptoms of indisposition began to appear,
without, however, affecting the activity of his intellect
or the cheerfulness of his manners. On the 3rd of
August, 1856, as he was returning from St. James's
Church, which for some years he had constantly at-
tended, a slight giddiness seized him, his steps became
uncertain, and he felt for a moment unable to proceed.
After a short rest he reached home without assistance.
This attack proved to be a slight paralysis, from which

MEMOIR OF WILLIAM YARRELL. XVli

he so far recovered as to able to give his uninterrupted
attention to matters of business. On Monday, the 25th
of August, he attended a Council of the Linnean Society,
and was as cheerful, and apparently nearly as well as
usual. In answer to a wish expressed by his intimate
and attached friend the President of the Society, that
he would soon be able to pay him a quiet visit, he said
that though pretty well he felt a " wooliness " in the
brain, and that he was restricted in his diet. On the
following Saturday, however, he felt himself well
enough to take charge of an invalid friend in a voyage
by sea to Yarmouth, and thus the very last act of
his life was one of kindness. He enjoyed the voyage,
took a moderate dinner at the Royal Hotel with appetite,
and retired to bed anticipating a good night's rest. But
scarcely had he lain down before he felt a difficulty of
breathing, and fearing, as he said, that " he might die
and no one know it," he got up, unlocked the door, and
rang the bell. The attentive landlady was speedily at
his bedside, medical assistance was procured without
delay, but nothing availed, and he expired calmly at
half-past twelve on Monday morning the 1st of Septem-
ber, in the seventy-third year of his age. He experi-
enced no pain, and remained perfectly conscious until
within a few minutes of his entering the unseen world.
The immediate cause of his death was judged to be
disease of the heart, with which the previous symptoms
of apoplexy were but indirectly connected. No autopsy
was made. On the following Monday he was buried at
Bayford in Hertfordshire (where a great many of his
maternal kinsfolk and ancestors lie), in a spot selected
by himself, his body being attended to the grave by the
President and other office-bearers of the Linnean So-
ciety, as well as by his executors and surviving relatives.

Xviil MEMOIR OF WILLIAM YARRELL.

A tombstone erected to his memory bears the following
inscription : —

HEKE LIE THE REMAINS
OP

WILLIAM YARRELL, V.P.L.S., F.Z.S.,

of St. James's, Westminster,
Author of a History of British Birds, and of a History of British Fishes.

BORN, JUNE 3rd, MDCCLXXXIV.
DIED, SEPT. 1st, MDCCCLVI.

He was the survivor of twelve Brothers and Sisters, who, with their Father
and Mother, are placed close to this spot.

' ' first and last,

The earliest summoned and the longest spared —
Are here deposited." — WORDSWORTH.

His executors were his relative Mr. Bird, and his
friend and publisher Mr. Van Voorst, and the property
administered to amounted to about 17,000/. After his
death his extensive library of Natural History books
and his valuable collections of British Birds and Fishes
were sold by auction, at which the Fishes were pur-
chased for the British Museum.

A portrait of him, painted in 1839 by Mrs. Carpenter,
is suspended in the hall of Burlington House, the ex-
pense having been defrayed by forty Fellows of the Lin-
nean Society ; and a Medallion Tablet executed by Mr.
Neville Burnard, has been affixed in St. James's Church,
at the west end of the nor th aisle.

The portrait facing the title-page of Vol. I., engraved
by Mr. Frederick A. Heath, is from a photograph by
Messrs. Maull and Poly blank, taken in 1855.

LIST OF MR. YARRELL'S WRITINGS.

1. Notices of the occurrence of some rare British Birds observed
during the years 1823, 1824, and 1825.— Zool. Journ., ii. p. 24,
March, 1825.

2. Ditto, second communication. — Zool. Journ., iii. p. 85, October,
1826.

3. Ditto, third communication. — Zool. Journ., iii. p. 497.

4. Some observations on the anatomy of the British Birds of
Prey. — Zool. Journ., iii. p. 181, October, 1826.

5. On the small horny appendage to the upper mandible in very
young chickens. — Zool. Journ. ,ii. p. 443, written 17th October, 1825,
published 1826.

6. Notice of the occurrence of a species of duck (Anas rufina]
new to the British Fauna. — Zool. Journ., ii. p. 492, 1826.

7. Observations on the tracheae of Birds, with descriptions and
representations of several not hitherto figured. — Linn. Trans., xv.
p. 378, 1827. Read February 6th, 1827.

8. On the change of plumage of some Hen Pheasants. — Phil.
Trans., written February, 1827. Read in May, 1827.

9. On the osteology of the Fennec (Canis cerdo}. — Zool. Journ., iii.
p. 401, 1827.

10. On the osteology of the ChlamypJiorus truncatus of Dr. Har-
lan, March, 1828. — Zool. Journ., iii. p. 544.

11. Some remarks on the habits of the Kingfisher, March, 1828.
— London s Mag. of Nat. Hist, and Journ. of Zool., <£v., i. p. 23,
1828.

12. Description of a species of Tringa (T. rufescens) killed in
Cambridgeshire, new to England and Europe. — Linn. Trans., xvi.
p. 109. Read June 17th, 1828.

13. On the supposed identity of Whitebait and Shad, August,
1828. — Zool. Journ., iv. p. 137.

xx LIST OF MR. YARRELL'S WRITINGS.

14. Observations on the Tapir of America. — Zool. Journ., iv.
p. 210.

15. On the use of the Xiphoid bone and its muscles in the Cormo-
rant (Pelecanus carbo, L.), August, 1828. — Zool. Journ., iv. p. 234.

16. Notes on the internal appearance of several animals examined
after death, in the collection of the Zoological Society (Otter, Para-
doxure, Ocelot, Chinchilla, Agouti, Porpoise, Touraco, Javanese
Peacock, Silver Pheasant, Hybrid Pheasant, White Stork, Common
Bittern, Crested Grebe, Bed-throated Diver, Tame Swan, Wild
Swan, Black Swan, Canada Goose, White-fronted Goose, Indian
Tortoise, Active Gibbon, Diana Monkey, Weeper Monkey, Mexican
Dog, Jerboa, Bobac, Malabar Squirrel, Crested Porcupine, Alpine
Hare).— Zool. Journ., iv. pp. 314-322.

17. On the structure of the beak and its muscles in the Cross-bill
(Loxia curvirostra] . — Zool. Journ., iv. p. 459.

18. Remarks on some English Fishes, with notices of three species
new to the British Fauna (Solea pegusa, Cottus bubalis, Anguilla).
— Zool. Journ., iv. p. 465.

19. Descriptive and Historical Notice of British Snipes. — Lou-
don's Mag. of Nat. Hist., <6c., ii. p. 143, 1829.

20. Supplement to ditto. — London's Mag. of Nat. Hist., iii. p. 27,
1830.

21. On the organs of voice in Birds. — Linn. Trans., xvi. p. 305.
Read June, 1829.

22. On a new species of Wild Swan (Cygnus Bewickii} taken in
England, and hitherto confounded with the Hooper. — Linn. Trans.,
xvi. p. 445. Read January, 1830.

23. Reply to the statement respecting the Discovery of Cygnus
Bewickii, published in the Philosophical Magazine and Annals for
August. — Richard Taylor's PJiilos. Mag. and Annals.

24. On the occurrence of the Sylvia Tithys of Scopoli in Eng-
land.— Proceed, of Com. of Science of Zool. Soc., i. p. 18, 1830.

25. On the assumption of the male plumage by the female of the
common Game Fowl. — Ibid., i. p. 22, 1830.

26. On the anatomy of the Cereopsis Novce Hollandice, Lath., and
on the relations between the Natatores and Grallatores. — Ibid., i.
p. 25, 1830.

27. On the sexual organs of the hybrid Pheasant. — Ibid., i. p. 27.

28. On the specific identity of the Gardenian and Night Herons
(Ardea Oardenii and nycticorax). — Ibid., i. p. 27.

29. On the Anatomy of the Chinchilla lanigera. — Ibid., i. p. 32.
29*. On the trachea of the Red-knobbed Curassow (Crax Yar-

rellii, Eeim.).—2bid., i. p. 33.

LIST OF MR. YARRELL'S WRITINGS. XXI

30. Characters of a new species of Herring (Clupea, L.). — Ibid.,
i. p. 34.

31. On the occurrence of several North American Birds in Eng-
land.— Ibid., i. p. 35.

32. On the anatomy of the Lesser American Flying Squirrel
(Pteromys volucella). — Ibid., i. p. 38.

33. On the anatomy of the Ctenodactylus Massonii, Gray.— Ibid.,
i. p. 48.

34. On the sterno-t cheal muscles of the Razor-billed Curassow
(Ourax mitu, Cuv.). — Ibid., i. p. 59.

35. On the distinctive characters of the Tetrao medius, Temm. —
Ibid., i. p. 73.

36. On two species of Entozoa in the Eel. — Ibid., L p. 132.

37. On the generation of Eels and Lampreys. — Ibid., i. p. 132.

38. On the Brown-headed Gull (Larus capistratus, Temm.). —
Ibid., i. p. 151.

39. On the anatomy of the Conger Eel (Conger vulgaris), and on
the differences between the Conger and the Fresh-water Eels. —
Ibid., i. p. 159.

4.0. Additions to the British Fauna, Class Fishes, September, 1830.
— London s Mag. of Nat. Hist., iii. p. 521.

41. Specific characters of Cygnus Bewiclrii and C. ferus. — Taylors
Phil. Mag. and Annals, vii. p. 194.

42. Additions to the catalogue of British Birds, with notices of
the occurrence of several rare species, January, 1831. — London s
Mag. of Nat. Hist., iv. p. 116.

43. On a hybrid between a Muscovy Duck (Anas moschata) and a
Common Duck (Anas boschas). — Proc. Com. of Sc. of Zool. Soc., ii.
p. 100, 1832.

44. On two species of Mammalia new to Britain, one of them
(Sorex remifer) new to science. — Ibid., ii. p. 429, 1832.

45. Description of the organs of voice in a new species of Wild
Swan (Cygnus buccinator of Richardson). — Linn. Trans., xvii. p. 1.
Read 20th March, 1832.

46. Description of three British species of Fresh-water Fishes
belonging to the genus Leuciscus of Klein. — Ibid., xvii. p. 5. Read
June, 1832.

47. Additions to the British Fauna, Class Mammalia (Arvicola
riparia, Sorex remifer}, August, 1832. — London's Mag. of Nat. Hist.,
v. p. 598.

48. Notice of a new species of Herring. — Zool. Journ., v. p. 277.

49. Observations on the laws which appear to influence the
assumption and changes of plumage in Birds. — Proceed. Zool. Soc.,

VOL. I. (2ndSupp.) C

xxii LIST OF MR. YARRELI/S WRITINGS.

i. pp. 9, 56 ; Trans. Zool. Soc., i. p. 13. Read February and April,
1833.

50. Description, with some additional particulars, of Apteryx aus-
tralis of Shaw. — Proc. Zool. Soc., i. p. 24; Trans. Zool. Soc., i.
p. 71. Read June, 1833.

51. On the tracheae of the Penelope gouan, Temm., and the Anas
magellanica, Auct. — Proceed. Zool. Soc., i. p. 3.

52. On the Woolly and Hairy Penguins (Aptenodytes) . — Proceed.
Zool. Soc., i. pp. 24, 80 ; Trans. Zool. Soc., i. p. 13, 1833.

53. On the identity of the Woolly Penguin of Latham with the
Aptenodytes patachonica of Gmelin. — Proceed. Zool. Soc., i. p. 33,
1833.

54. Characters of the Irish Hare, a new species of Lepus. — Ibid.,
i. p. 88.

55. On the deficiency of teeth in the hairless Egyptian variety of
the dog. — Ibid., i. p. 113.

56. Notice of the occurrence of Squilla Desmarestii on the
British shores. — London's Mag. of Nat. Hist., Sc., vi. p. 230.

57. On the reproduction of the Eel. — Report of Brit. Assoc., 1833,
p. 446.

58. On the anal pouch of the male fishes in certain species of
Syngnatlius. — Proceed. Zool. Soc., ii. p. 118.

59. Observations on the economy of an insect destructive to
turnips (Athalia centifolia). — Trans. Zool. Soc., ii. p. 67. Read
November, 1835.

60. On the mode of union after fracture of the processes of the
vertebrae of a Sole (Solea vulgaris, Cuv.). — Proceed. Zool. Soc., iii.
p. 57, 1835.

61. On the trachea of the Stanley Crane (Anthropoides para-
diseus, Besch.). — Ibid., iii. p. 183.

62. On the foetal pouch of the male Needle Pipe-fish (Syngnathus
acus, L.). — Ibid., iii. p. 183, 1835.

63. A History of British Fishes. Van Voorst, London, 1836, 2
vols., 8vo., (published in parts, finished in 1836, containing vol. i.
pp. 408, vol. ii. pp. 472).

64. Supplement to ditto, March, 1839 (vol. i. pp. 48, vol. ii. pp.
78, containing 27 new species).

64*. On an interwoven mass of filaments of Conferva fluiiatilis
of extraordinary size. — Proceed. Linn. Soc., i. p. 65, 1838.

65. A History of British Fishes. Van Voorst, London, 1841, 2
vols., 8vo., Second Edition (vol. i. pp.464; vol. ii. pp. 628, con-
taining 263 species, and 500 figures).

66. A History of British Birds. Van Voorst, London, 1843, 3

LIST OF MR. YARRELI/S WRITINGS. xxiii

vols., 8vo. (published in parts at intervals of two months, the first
one in July, 1837, and the last one in May, 1843. Vol. i. pp. 525 ;
vol. ii. pp. 669 ; vol. iii. pp. 528).

67. Supplement to ditto, October, 1845 (number of species in the
first edition and supplement 354).

68. A History of British Birds. Van Voorst, London, 1845, 3
vols., 8vo., Second Edition.

69. On a new species of Swan (Cygnus immutabilis] . — Proceed.
Zool. Soc., ix. p. 70, 1841.

70. On the trachea of a male Spur-winged Goose (Anser gamben-
sis).—Ibid., ix. p. 70, 1841.

71. On a new species of Smelt from the isle of Bute (Osmerus
hebridicus] . — Report of Brit. Assoc. for 1838, p. 108.

72. On the preservation of Crustacea. — Entom. Mag., vi. p. 421.

73. Remarks on some species of Syngnathus. — Annals of Nat.
Hist, and Mag. of Zool., Jardine, <&c., iii. p. 81.

74. Growth of Salmon in fresh water. — Ibid., iv. p. 334.

75. On Motacilla alba, L. — Ibid., vii. p. 350.

76. Description of the eggs of some of the birds of Chile. — Zool.
Proceed:, 1847.

77. Occurrence of a Petrel new to Britain on the coast of Ireland,
June, 1853.— Zoologist, 3947.

78. On birds lately ascertained to be British, p. 79 ; and on rare
English fishes, p. 85.— Ibid., 79. 1843.

79. On the influence of the sexual organ in modifying external
character. — Journ. Linn. Soc., June, 1856, i. p. 76.

80. On Mucor observed by Colonel Montagu in the air-cells of a
bird. — Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist., Sc., ix. p. 131.

81. Chapter VIII. in the Third Edition of Harvey's Sea-side
Book " On Marine Fishes," pp. 237-269.

SECOND SUPPLEMENT

TO THE FIRST VOLUME OP

THE HISTORY OF BRITISH FISHES.

ACANTHOPTERI. SCLEROGENID^E.

FABRICIUS'S SEA-BULLHEAD.
KANIOK, Greenland Eskimos.

Acanthocottus groenlandicus, GIRARD.

Coitus scorpius, FABRICIUS, F. Groenl. p. 156 (excl. syn.).

,, groerilandicus, Cuv. et. VALENC. Poiss. vol. iv. p. 185.

,, ,, RICHARDSON, F. Bor. Am. iii. pp. 46, 297, 314, pi. 95.

,, ,, Greenl. Bullhead, THOMPS. Nat. Hist, of Irel. iii. p. 81.

AN example of this species was captured in Dingle
Harbour in February 1850, and exhibited in the Dublin
Natural History Society, by Mr. William Andrews. As
yet, this and one seen by Dr. Ball, are the only recorded
examples of the fish that have been met with on our
shores. The figure at the head of the article, which
corresponds closely with the one published by Mr.
Andrews, and the vignette at the end, are borrowed from
the Fauna Boreali Americana, where a Newfoundland
specimen is described at length.

This, Fabricius says, is a most voracious fish, and very

VOL. I. (2«<* Supp.) B

2 SCLEROGENIDJ:.

destructive of the fry of Blennies, Salmon, Herrings, and
Haddocks. It even attacks larger fish, does not spare its
own species, devours crabs and worms, and in fact pur-
sues every living thing that it can master.* It is bold,
lively, and incautious ; but habitually keeps at the bot-
tom of the sea, coming to the surface only when it is led
thither in pursuit of its prey. It spawns in December
and January, depositing its roe on sea-weeds. It is prized
as an article of food by the Greenland Eskimos, who
eat it daily both boiled and dried, and find it agreeable
and wholesome for the sick. Many of them eat its eggs
raw ; and some even consume the fish itself in that condi-
tion. They capture it with lines armed with four hooks,
disposed crosswise, and with no other bait than something
coloured or shining placed above the hooks. Sometimes
they spear it.

The female, Fabricius states, is larger than a male of
the same age, and may be distinguished at once by its
white belly, which appears yellow in the water and is
spotted. The posterior cranial tubercles are nearer to
each other in the males than in the females. There are
four of these tubercles on the upper aspect of the head,
one at each corner of an area, which in the female is
nearly square and flat. There are besides eight spines
on each half of the head and shoulders, viz. a nasal,
opercular, subopercular, scapular, and humeral one, with
three preopercular ones. The principal spine is the one
at the angle of the preoperculum. Its tip falls about
its own length short of the point of the opercular spine.
The interval between the orbits is much depressed, and

* The omnivorous appetite ascribed to this Bullhead by Fabricius was
proved by an examination of the contents of the stomachs of several New-
foundland specimens, which consisted of the vertebral columns of several
small fishes, some entire crabs, the peelings of potatoes, and other substances.
These Bullheads were caught off the end of a landing jetty.

THE SEA-BULLHEAD. 3

is bounded anteriorly by the two nasal spines and the
prominent ends of the premaxillary pedicles. There are
no serratures on any of the spines or bones of the head
or shoulder, in which respects this species differs from
the Father-Lasher.

The top of the head is sprinkled with soft conical
pimples, and the skin generally is naked and smooth, but
some small, circular, minutely-spiniferous scales exist on
the back and posterior surfaces of the pectoral rays.

Br. 6 : D. 10—17 or 18 : A. 12 or 13 : P. 17 : V. 1 + 3 : C. 11§.

Colours, after the specimen had been kept in spirits,
dark brown on the dorsal aspect, mixed with clay-
coloured patches on the head, and crimson blotches on
the gill-covers, nape and pectorals. The sides, belly,
pectoral fins, and ventrals, are ornamented with circular
spots of dead white, each surrounded by a dark rim.
The liver has a bright red colour in the spirits.

FRONT OF COTTUS GROENLANDICUS.

I

4 SPARID^.

ACANTHOPTERL SPARiD.fi.

COUCH'S SEA-BREAM.

Pagrus orpkus, Le Pagre Orphe, CTTV. et VALENO. vi. p. 150, pi. 149.
" Awataorphns" ,, ,, Risso, 2e edit. p. 356.
Couch's Sea-Bream, ,, COUCH. (Ion.) Zool. for 1843, p. 81.

Pagellus Rondeletii, „ COUCH. (R.Q.) Zool. for 1846, p. 1406.

ONLY one example of this fish is known to have been
captured on the English coast, and, as is the case with
several other occasional or rare visitants of the Cornish
shores, we owe its enrolment in the list of British Fishes
to the acuteness and active zeal of Jonathan Couch, Esq.
The specimen figured above was taken on the 8th of
November 1842 with a baited hook, at a rocky place
termed the Edges, three miles south of Polperro. Its
weight was six pounds. Mr. Couch having presented
the specimen to the British Museum, Dr. Gray, Keeper
of the Zoological Department of that Institution, has
most kindly furnished the following account of it : —

" The specimen is stuffed. The front teeth above and
below are four on each side, the upper ones being conical,
the lower ones elongato-conical, and set widely apart.
Behind these, but in the front part of both jaws, there is
a crowded patch of small subulate teeth. On the limbs
of the jaws the molars are large with globular crowns,

COUCH'S SEA-BREAM,

TEETH

COUCH'S SEA-BREAM.

and rounded teeth of unequal size cover the roof of the
mouth. The fish is moderately like fig. 149, in the His-
toire des Poissons, but that figure does not show space
enough between the tall conical teeth in front of the
mandible, and the flat molars on the limb of the bone.
The specimen also has a higher front than the figure
referred to, with more resemblance in profile to Pagellus
calamus, fig. 152, of the same work. This elevation
of the face may be owing to age, for the specimen
figured in the Histoire des Poissons was only eight inches
long, while the one in the British Museum measures above
twenty. (For a side view of the mouth see p. 36.)

D. 12+11 : A. 3 + 9: V. 1 + 5: P. 15: C. 29.
The last two rays of the dorsal and anal are contiguous
at the base, and the last ventral ray is also divided to
the bottom." — Gray.
Mr. Couch says, that the
body is not unlike the
Pagellus centrodontus, but
is rather deeper and more
stout. The head is thick,
and the snout remarkably
so. The back rises high
above the head. The
colour of the front and
top of the head was a
brownish -red, that of the
back and fins between
lake and vermilion, or
like the Becker, except
the anal, which was
pale-yellow : the sides
being pale-red and the
belly whitish. — Couch.

SPARIU^E.
ACANTHOPTERL SPARID^E.

THE BOGUE.

BOGA, Provence, Madeira. — BOBBA, Venice. — UOPPA,
Messina. — BALAIJOLA, Catania.

Box vulgaris, Le Bogue commun, CUVIER et VALENC. vi. p. 348, pi. 161.
Box vel Boops, ,, ,, BELON. de Aq. p. 230.

,, ,, ,, ,, RONDELET, PisC. p. 136.

Boops Rondeletii primus, WILLTJGHBY, 317, t. U. 8. f. 1.

Box vulgaris, Common Bogue, YARRELL, Zool. for 1843, p. 85.

Box or BOOPS. Generic Character. — Body elongated, rounded, the dorsal
and ventral profiles alike, and the general aspect peculiarly trim. Mouth
small ; premaxillary very little movable, overlapped together with the maxil-
lary and edge of the mandible by the preorbitar when the mouth is shut.
Teeth uniserial, incisorial, chisel-shaped, lobed, and crenated. Stomach
very small, with a long pyloric branch, and about five pancreatic casca. Air-
bladder large, thin, and nacry, with two long, posterior, horn-like appendages,
which enter among the muscles of the tail.

THE BOGUE, or BOGA, abounds in the Mediterranean,
and as it has an Atlantic range southwards to Madeira
and the Canaries, and according to Cornide, northwards
to the coasts of Galicia, it is precisely one of the fish that
might be expected to pay occasional visits to the southern
extremity of England, but Alfred Fox, Esq., of Fal-
mouth, is the only person who as yet has had the fortune

THE BOGUE. 7

to recognise and secure an English example of the spe-
cies. That specimen was caught at St. Mawes, in a
ground seine, early in October 1843, and deposited by
Mr. Fox in the Museum at Truro, where it is preserved,
stuffed, and varnished. Through the kindness of Dr.
Barham, Senior Physician of the Cornwall Infirmary, the
specimen has been lent that the subjoined description
might be taken of it, but the figure on the preceding page
is copied from one in the Histoire des Poissons, which was
drawn from a fresh specimen, rather than from the Truro
one, which has suffered mutilation in the fin-rays.

The genera Box, Oblata, Boxaodon (Guich.), Scatharus,
and Crenidens, form the fourth Sparoid tribe of Cuvier,
and are characterized by simple, lobed or serrated, tren-
chant teeth set closely side by side on the edges of the
jaws ; sometimes with villiform teeth behind them, or
more often with many-crowded rows of minute teeth
having a villiform appearance to the naked eye, but being
in fact similar in form to the large incisorial ones that
constitute the exterior row, and destined to succeed them
as they wear away and drop out. In this tribe there
are no rounded molars on the limbs of the jaws, which,
consequently, are neither so strong nor so thick as in the
members of the first tribe, which have broad molars, that
necessarily require space. In accordance with the den-
tition the mouth of Box and its allies is small, and the
neat head is very unlike that of the bull-headed Chryso-
phrydes and Pagri.

The Bogue, according to the Histoire des Poissons,
spawns twice in the year, and at these times it approaches
the shore in large sculls. The fishermen of Provence and
Nice take it in nets of a peculiar kind, named by them
bughiera, and to render the fishery more prosperous, they
adorn their boats with small figures of the Bogue cut

8 SPARID^E.

in silver. Rondelet says that the flesh of the Bogue is
easily digested, and on that account is a wholesome ali-
ment for invalids, but Cornide, who speaks of it as he
observed it on the Atlantic coasts of Spain, states that it
has a disagreeable taste, and is consumed chiefly by poor
people. Mr. Lowe tells us that it is exceedingly common
at Madeira, and though he says nothing of its qualities
as an article of food, he remarks of another species of the
same genus that it is one of the handsomest and most
worthless of fishes.

The Bogue has an elegant, moderately-compressed, ellip-
tical form, the curves of the dorsal and ventral profiles
meeting at the terminal mouth which is slightly obtuse.
The greatest height of the body is at the fifth or sixth
dorsal spinous ray, and is contained thrice and one-half
times in the length, excluding the caudal fin. The head
makes a fourth of the same distance, or a fifth of the entire
length of the fish, including the caudal fin. The face forms
part of the general dorsal curve without inequalities, and
the crown of the head is moderately rounded transversely,
the width at the posterior angles of the orbits being a
little more than a diameter of the eye, but at the anterior
angles a little less. The nostrils are small pore-like open-
ings in a membrane near the anterior angle of the orbit,
and close to the upper end of the preorbitar.

The mouth is very small, and is armed above and be-
low with a single close-set series of incisorial teeth,
which are channelled in front, bevelled and crenated on
the edges. The minute crenatures of each of the upper
teeth number about seven or eight, the cutting edges be-
ing otherwise nearly straight; but the lower teeth have
a convexly-curved edge, and from the depth of the
lateral crenatures are more or less lobed ; in the St.
Mawes specimen none of the under teeth have the

THE BOGUE. 9

strongly-projecting middle lobe represented in the His-
toire des Poissons ; and if it existed in the younger fish, it
has worn down in the older specimen before us. Cuvier
enumerates twenty-four teeth in the upper jaw, but the
jaws being only half open in the example we are describ-
ing, we cannot reckon beyond nine or ten on each pre-
maxillary or limb of the mandible.

The preorbitar is highest anteriorly, and narrows
gradually towards its termination under the centre of the
pupil, its length being about twice its greatest height;
the rest of the suborbitar chain is narrow, the whole form-
ing a half circle close beneath the eye, with a silvery
lustre and many pores. The mandible has the same kind
of porous nacry surface on its under aspect, and all the
naked parts of the head seem to be copiously mucigenous.
The upper edges of the mandible, as far back as the arti-
culation of the jaw, are received under the preorbitars,
which also wholly cover the maxillaries and all the late-
ral portions of the premaxillaries. A crescentic band of
scales, five deep in the centre of the crescent, covers the
cheek entirely between the suborbitar chain and the
naked preopercular disk, which has a perfectly even
hyperbolically-curved edge.

Four rows of smaller scales cover the interoperculum,
which, when the jaws are closed, touches its fellow, and
conceals the branchiostegous membrane. The posterior
margin of the gill-cover is a small segment of a circle,
of which the suboperculum constitutes about two-thirds.
A small shallow obtuse notch, with rounded corners, ter-
minates the bony edge of the operculum, above the level
of the pectoral fin : with the lower corner of the notch
the point of the suboperculum coincides exactly so that
there is no projection, and neither bone nor notch would
be perceptible in a recent specimen. The membranous

1 0 SPARID M.

edge of the gill-cover is very narrow, and the disk is
covered with six rows of scales nearly as large as those
on the body, but diminishing to five and four rows as they
descend over the suboperculum whose junction with the
operculum they wholly conceal. From opposite the
upper corner of the opercular notch, a strip of scaleless
very porous integument curves upwards and forwards to
the mesial line of the occiput opposite the posterior
angles of the orbits where it meets its fellow : it includes
the porous disk of the suprascapula, which looks like a
scale, and is bounded posteriorly by eight or nine scales,
being the commencement of those on the body, but ap-
pearing larger from their whole disks being exposed. On
the temples between the naked border of the orbit and
.the humero-nuchal arc of integument, there is a short
isolated patch of scales ranged in four rows. With this
exception, the top of the head, the snout, and jaws are
destitute of scales.

The lateral line bounds the upper fourth part of the
height, having a rather flatter curve than the back : it is
composed of seventy-eight scales, exclusive of the small
scales on the base of the caudal, where the line cannot
be traced in the dried specimen. Where the body is
highest there are six rows of scales above the row which
forms the lateral line, and about twelve below, all ranged
so as to form nearly a semicircular curve between the
dorsal and ventral profiles, and having a Sciaenoid aspect,
with more or less obliquity. The free border has a smooth
nacry surface, with many little pits, producing the same
appearance of frosted silver which the naked parts of the
head exhibit. A detached scale has a straight base, im-
pressed with six, eight, ten, or more furrows, separated
by ridges that diverge, like the rays of a fan, from a point
situated in the posterior third of the disk : the sides are

THE BOGUE. 11

also straight, and the free margin is curved, and smooth
when its nacry epidermis is entire; but the adjoining
half of the disk is composed of microscopical polygonal
areas, like denticles worn down, and the exterior row
of these denticulate the margin when the epidermis is
removed : the lines of structure run parallel to the free
edge and sides, bending at the angles to do so.

(D. 14+15: A. 3+16: P. 18: V. 1 + 5: C. 15§.— (Hist, des Poiss.)
The coloured drawing of the British specimen sent by
Mr. Fox to Mr. Yarrell is not among the papers handed
to the Editor of the present edition of British Fishes,
but the following tints are enumerated by Cuvier, who
describes a fresh specimen. " The back is yellowish-
olive, and the belly silvery. Three or four bright golden
lines traverse the sides." Even in the dried specimen the
course of these lines can be traced.

The total length of the specimen is about ten inches.

MULL OF CANTYBE.

The barrier of that iron shore. — SCOTT.

12 SCOMBRID^i.

A CANTHOPTERI. SCOM BRIDGE.

THE DOTTED MACKEREL.

Scomber punctatus, COUCH, Zool. 1849, p. xxix. App. fig.

,, „ ID. Rep. to Penz. Nat. Hist. Soc. for 1848, pi. iii. f. 1.

,, ,, WHITE, Cat. Brit. Mus. p. 30.

THIS fish was taken in a Mackerel Seine at Looe, in
Cornwall, on the 6th of July, 1848, and fortunately fell
into the hands of Jonathan Couch, Esq., the able and
industrious cultivator of Cornish ichthylogy. As no
second example has as yet been met with, and the chief
peculiarities of the Dotted Mackerel are its colours
and markings, its specific rank may remain a question,
until the acquisition of other specimens furnish the
means of investigating its internal structure. In the
meanwhile Mr. Couch's description is quoted from the
Zoologist. The figure is from a drawing by him.

" The length of the specimen was fifteen inches and a
half, and the general proportions wrere those of the
Common Mackerel. Conspicuous scales, marked by
minute transverse lines, cover the sides and belly, where
none are distinguishable in the common species. There
was no corselet, but there was some appearance of it in
a line of denser scales above the pectoral fin which

THE DOTTED MACKEREL.

13

vanished below that fin. The dorsals were three inches
apart.

D. 12—11, V: P. 20.

' ' The tail at the setting on of the caudal fin is depressed
and square. Lateral line waved. The colour afforded a
marked distinction from the Common Mackerel, being
of an uniform dark neutral tint, or bluish-olive, green
on the head and back without any coloured bands or
variations, but with green reflections on the sides : round,
well-defined spots, of the size of a small pea, cover the
sides thickly from head to tail ; on the summit of the
back they are a little larger, and are transversely elon-
gated ; they end a little below the lateral line, the belly
being pure white. Between the caudal crests the surface
is a bronzed yellow. The specimen was a female, and had
an air-bladder." — Couch, L c.

WHEEL AND SPINDLE, ST. ANDREW'S.

I

' ' Prima dioccesis et antiquissima regni
Patroni Andrese nobile nomen habet."

(Carmen de Fifa, SIBBALD.)

"St. Rule, a monk of Patra, in Achaia, warned by a vision, A.D. 370, is
said to have sailed westward till he landed at St. Andrew's, where he founded
a chapel and tower." — SCOTT, Marmion, i. notes.

* SCOMBR1D.E.

A CANTHOPTERL SCOMBRID^.

THE GERMON.

Thynnus alalonga, Le German, CUVIER et VALENC. viii. p. 120, t. 215.
German, BARBOT, Churchill's Voy. v. pi. 29 (1732).

Alilonghi, DUHAMEL, Peches, pp. 203, 207.

Ala-longa, CETTI, Hist. Nat. Sard. iii. p. 191.

Orcynus alalonga, COUCH (Jon.), MSS. fig.
Long-finned Tunny, COUCH (R. Q.), Zool. 1413, with fig.

CUVIER considers it to be one of the most remarkable
facts in the history of ichthyology, that this fish of
great size, very distinct in its characters, excellent as an
article of food, and the subject of productive fisheries
on the coasts of Europe, should have remained unnoticed
by ichthyologists until a recent period. Though it is
captured in abundance on the north coasts of Spain,
facing the Bay of Biscay, and appears to be not un-
common on the French Atlantic coasts as high as
Rochelie, it either rarely enters the English Channel, or
it has been overlooked by British naturalists as much as
it had been by those of Spain and France. It is to the
Messieurs Couch, father and son, that we owe its intro-
duction into the list of English fishes. Mr. R. Q.
Couch informs us in the Zoologist for 1846 that two

THE GERMON. 15

specimens have been taken in Mount's Bay by fisher-
men who have spread their seines for Mackerel. One
of them in the year 1846, whereof the published figure is
quoted above, and the other, which was captured several
years previously, was then deposited in the Penzance
Museum of Natural History.

This fish ought to interest Englishmen peculiarly,
since its appellation of Germon, by wrhich it was first made
known to science, is supposed to be a corruption of the
word War-man, in use at the lie d'Yeu, when the Eng-
lish were masters of Guienne and Poitou. The Basques
name it hegalalonchia, which signifies long-winged, and the
French mariners also, with reference to the length of its
pectorals, callitlong-oreille (long-ear). Cuvier had not the
means of comparing Mediterranean with Atlantic speci-
mens of this fish ; their identity, therefore, rests on the
accuracy of the details given in books. His description
was drawn up from a specimen procured from Rochelle,
and ought to accord with the British fish.

M. Noel de la Moriniere has given the best account
of the fisheries of the Germon on the French Atlantic
coasts. The fishermen of He d'Yeu begin the fishery in
the south of the Bay of Biscay opposite St. Sebastians,
follow the fish in their movements to the north of
Belleisle ; and the numbers they capture in a season
average 13,000 or 14,000. They use lines of eighty
fathoms in length, and bait their hooks with salted eel,
but the Germon being very voracious, a piece of white
or blue cloth or some shining piece of earthenware, or
tin cut into the form of a Pilchard, often serves the pur-
pose.

The Germons arrive in the Bay of Biscay in numerous
bands about the middle of June, sometimes a few come
as early as May, and they continue to be met with as

16 SCOMBRI^.

late as October. Their fishery is generally two months
later than that of the Tunny. The Germons prey on
Mullets, Pilchards, Anchovies, and other fishes that
assemble in sculls, and they also pursue the Flying-fishes.
When the Germons come to the surface of the water, the
fishermen take few, and large captures are only made at
great depths. Experience alone points out the places
where they may be sought with success, and when once
the fishermen fall in with a scull of these fish, they
pursue it till the end of the season. A cloudy sky, a
fresh north-west or south- west wind, and a gently-agitated
sea, are favourable for this fishery. When in full season,
that is, in July and August, the meat of the Germon is
whiter and more delicate than that of the Tunny, and
fetches a better price, but before and after these months
it is inferior. These details are borrowed from the
Histoire des Poissons, wherein the history of the species
is carried to a much greater length.

The specimen described in the Zoologist by Mr. R.
Q. Couch was eighteen inches long and five high, ex-
cluding the vertical fins. The Germon has the usual
form of the Tunnies, and a thickness equal to about two-
thirds of its height. The falcate pectoral reaches as far
towards the tail as the middle of the anal fin. The corse-
let, composed of larger scales, commencing on the humeral
chain, embraces the base of the pectoral, and extending as
far as that fin reaches, forms a recess in which the fin
lies when it is laid to the side of the fish. The formula
for the fin-rays is —

P. 37: D. 14—3+12, VIII. : A. 3+12, VIII. : V. 1 + 5: C. 40.

There are three graduated spines buried in the front
of the soft dorsal and anal, and eight detached finlets
follow each of these fins. The ventrals are closely approxi-

THE GERMON.

17

mated to each other, and between them there is a slender
scale which looks like an additional ray. The caudal fin
is widely crescentic with very short rays towards the
middle. The mouth is small, and the mandible is longer
than the upper jaw. The teeth are small, and not thickly
set on the jaws. On the palatines and tongue they are
very short and densely villiform. The colour of the speci-
men was blackish-blue or deep mackerel tint on the dorsal
aspect, fading on the ventral surface into pale blue,
yellow, and white. These particulars are chiefly from Mr.
Couch.

THE TUMMEL AT BONSKIEI).

VOL. I.

18 SCOMBRlDvE.

A CA NTHOPTERI. SCOMBRID^E.

THE PELAMID.

Pelamys sarda, La Pelamide, Cuv. et VAL. t. viii. p. 149, tab. 217.

,, veia Aristotelis, KONDELET, 238. A.D. 1554.

Pelamis, SALVIAN, 123. A.D. 1554.

Thunnus, ALDROVAND, 213. A.D. 1640.

Pelamys Belloni, WILLUGHBT, 180. A.D. 1686.

Scomber pontic us, PALLAS, Zoogr. vol. iii. p. 217. A.D. 1831.

,, ,, BLOCK, 334.

Pelamys sarda, La Pelamide, WEBB et BERTH. Can. Poiss. p. 50.
Scomber sarda, Bonetta, MITCHILL, New York Trans, vol. i. p. 428,

No. 8.

PELAMYS. Generic Characters. — The general shape of the members of this
group is fusiform, and they have a cutaneous keel on each side of the slender
part of the tail. On the coracoidal or pectoral region, scales of larger size
form a corselet ; elsewhere the scales are small and tender, passing, on the
belly, into soft nacry integument. The dorsals are contiguous ; and the first
one has its rays, which are spinous, connected by a continuous membrane :
behind the second dorsal there are numerous detached finlets, and one or two
fewer behind the anal. The branchiostegals are seven. These, and other
characters, they have in common with the Tunnies (Thynni) ; but they are
distinguished by having longer and stronger subulate teeth on the jaws, widely
set. The head is conical, with a rather fine apex formed by the symphyses of
the equally long jaws.

THIS fine fish has a wide distribution, having been
taken of full size on the Russian coasts of the Black
Sea, in all districts of the Mediterranean, and on both
sides of the Atlantic — on the east side from the Cape
Verds and Canaries, northwards along the coast of Spain,

THE PELAMID. 19

and on the west side off Connecticut, at New York, and
on the Brazil coast. Ichthyologists might naturally have
looked in the British seas for this active and wide-tra-
velling fish, especially on the Cornish or Irish coasts ; but
the first of our naturalists who has had the fortune to
procure a British example, or at least to recognise the
species, is William Beattie, Esq., Honorary Secretary of
the Montrose Natural History and Antiquarian Society.
The specimen was captured in a salmon -net set at the
mouth of the North Esk, which falls into the North Sea
in latitude 56|°, and fortunately came into the posses-
sion of a gentleman competent to understand the value
ichthyologists set on such a discovery. Before intelli-
gence of this fish reached us the entire impression of
the third edition of British Fishes had been printed off;
but as there had been no issue, we are enabled to inter-
polate this notice in the place that the species ought to
occupy in the volume : and we beg to tender many
thanks to Mr. Beattie and Dr. Gray for their communi-
cations ; and to the directors of the Montrose Society
for their liberality in lending the specimen.

According to Pallas, the Black Sea specimens attain
the length of an ell ; Webb and Berthollet's Canary
example was twenty-five inches long ; Storer quotes the
dimensions of the New England ones at two feet; and
Mr. Beattie's Forfar one measures twenty-two inches and
three-quarters. These dimensions approach those of the
Tunnies, and sailors very commonly confound the Striped
Thynni and the Pelamids with each other under the
general term of Bonitos ; they also give them the name
of Skip-jacks, expressive of the habit which many of the
large Scomberoids have of skimming the surface of the
sea, and springing occasionally into the air.

Pallas describes the Black Sea Pelamids as being vari-

c 2

20 SCOMBRHXE.

ously clouded, on the upper parts, with brown and blue
bands, while the under parts are silvery white and highly
polished, and he adds that a blue stripe runs along under
the lateral line. The branchiostegous membrane and the
first dorsal are black, the pectoral fins azure-coloured —
the purity of the colours and elegant form of the fish
rendering it a very beautiful object.

The British Scomberoid to which the Pelamid has the
nearest resemblance in external form is the Belted
Bonito, which has been detected in our seas by Mr.
Couch alone : but that Thynnus has shorter teeth, and
only thirteen spinous rays, in the first dorsal. In the
Forfarshire specimen the following is the formula of the
rays —

Br. 7: D. 21 — 1 + 13— viii.: A. 4 + 12— vi.: P. 24: V. 1 + 5: C. 21— 20.

The spinous rays of the first dorsal are slender, and
the third is the tallest, while the first is not above a
sixth or a seventh part shorter. The figure shows the
form of the fin, and how it falls off posteriorly. There
is, perhaps, a short incumbent ray on the base of the
second dorsal spine, but its existence cannot be proved
without dissection, and it may be that the spine is merely
thickened at the base. The numbers of the detached
finlets behind the dorsal and anal vary with the age of
the fish in the Scomberoids, the membrane being more
continuous in the young, and including more of them.
Four slender, graduated, jointless rays commence the
anal. The pectoral is triangular, and when in repose,
fits into a depression of the corselet. Its tip, when laid
back, just passes the eighth ray of the first dorsal: and
the ventrals, which also recline in a cutaneous depression,
have their origin opposite to the base of the first pec-
toral ray. The corselet composed of scales, larger and

THE PELAMID. 21

somewhat more conspicuous than the others, covers a
triangular area on each side, which extends from the
supra-scapula to a little beyond the point of the pec-
toral, where it ends rather obtusely. Its inferior edge
is straight, and running along and near the under margin
of the pectoral, joins the coracoid above the curve of
the gill-cover. On the back the scales are very small,
but sufficiently visible to the naked eye by reflected
light, particularly a row or two under the spinous dorsal.
They become gradually imperceptible on the sides,
and are lost on the belly in the smooth nacry integu-
ment.

In the supra-scapular region, the lateral line bounds
the corselet, receding from it over the proximal third of
the pectoral, in a small curve convex upwards, then,
before it passes the posterior third of the pectoral, re-
suming a straight course parallel to the back and nearer
to its profile than to that of the belly. It makes, how-
ever, some slight undulations before reaching the region
of the vent. Opposite the penultimate dorsal and anal
free finlets, the lateral line is replaced by a callous
cutaneous crest, which terminates at the base of the
caudal. There are no oblique crests on the bases of the
fin just named, such as the Common Mackerel possesses.

Both jaws are armed by conico-subulate teeth, rather
widely set, with smaller ones springing up in some of the
intervals. Most of these teeth are moderately curved,
and the tallest ones arm the sides of the mandible ; a pair,
equally tall, however, stands on each side of the point
of that bone, and rather more interiorly than the general
row. On the premaxillaries the teeth are smaller and
closer. The palatine ones are strongly curved and rather
crowded : there are none on the vomer.

Ten dark bars traverse the back and upper half of

22 SCOMBRIM.

the sides, descending below the lateral line. They run
obliquely, the longest one extending from between the
first and second free dorsal finlets to the apex of the
corselet; the others lie parallel to it and at equal dis-
tances, and consequently, owing to the curve of the back,
decrease in length the further they are situated from the
one above mentioned. In the dried specimen the cheek
is impressed by brownish grooves or wrinkles, intercept-
ing elliptical areas, and similar depressions exist on the
integument covering the coracoids. On the head gene-
rally, and especially on the jaws and gill-covers, the skin
is very smooth, even, and nacry, without scales. The
branchiostegous membrane and the isthmus of the gills
are bluish-black. The first dorsal also appears to have
been blackish, Including the caudal, the specimen mea-
sures twenty-one and three-quarter inches in length.

In the Zoologist for 1859 (p. 6731) mention is made
of the capture, in a herring-net set off the coast of Banff,
of an example of the Plain Bonito (Auxis vulgaris of
the second edition) — a fish which has hitherto been but
seldom recognised on our coasts.

In the warmer districts of the Atlantic, Bonitos, Pela-
mids, and other large Scomberoids, are fished for with
tackle rigged like a Mackerel line, but considerably
stronger. The bait is a piece of bright tin, shaped like
a Flying-fish, or a slice of the skin of pork, or of the tail
of a Mackerel. The hook is weighted so as to sink a
little beneath the surface of the water, and produces
most sport when it is dragged at the rate of five miles
an hour, or thereabouts.

THE DERBIO. 23

A CA NTHOPTERI. SCOM BRIDGE.

THE DERBIO.

Lichia glaucus, Cuv. et VALENC. viii. p. 558, pi. 234.

Premier glaucus, RONDELET, p. 252.

Lampuge des Marseillais, BELON, p. 155.

Scomber glaucus, LINNAEUS.

Gasterosteus glaucus, FORSTER, Des. An. p. 5.

Centronotus vel Lichia glaycos, Risso, 2me Edit.

Centronotus binotatus, RAFINESQUE.

Albacore, COUCH, Linn. Tr. xiv. p. 82. JENTNS, Man. p. 366.

LICHIA. Generic Characters. — Form oval, compressed, covered with lea-
thery scales, without keel or lateral ridges on the tail ; head small ; teeth
minute. Dorsal spines low, isolated, each with an axillary membrane, and,
in front of all, a recumbent spine ; two preanal spines ; second dorsal and
anal long, similar to one another ; no spurious tins. Seven branchiostegals.
A large air-bladder, expanded posteriorly. Five conspicuous cranial ridges,
the median one being the longest and highest.

FOUR species of this genus are described in the Histoire
des Poissons, three of them inhabitants of the Mediter-
ranean, but together with the fourth, ranging also along
the western coast of Africa, some of them as far as the
Cape of Good Hope, where the Dutch colonists call
them lyre-vish. The species which we have to describe
is the one which Rondelet says is known at Mont-
pellier, by the name of Derbio, but which is called La
liche and La cabrolle by the Proven9als, and La lechia by

24 SCOMBRIDJ:.

the Sards and Romans. At Nice its name is lecco, and,
according to Rafinesque, its Sicilian appellations are cio-
nana, ciodena and ciodera. Cuvier received specimens
from various Atlantic localities, Algesiras, Madeira, Tene-
riffe, Goree, Ascension, Saint Helena, the Cape of Good
Hope, and from Brazil, not to be distinguished from the
Mediterranean ones. It may possibly be, as Forster inti-
mates, the Sea-blueling or Silver-fish of the West Indies,
but we have seen no example from that quarter. It occurs
in the Rev. R. T. Lowe's list of Madeira fish, under the
local names of Ranhosa, Toonbeta, and Pelumbeta, and is
said to be extremely common at that island. It belongs
to the same tribe of Scomberoids, with free dorsal spines,
as Naucrates, that is, to the Centronoti of LacSpede.

Notwithstanding its extensive southern range, it seems
to wander rarely into the more northern parts of the
Atlantic. It is not mentioned by French ichthyologists
as having been captured on the western coasts of their
country ; and Mr. Couch, to whose industry and acute
discrimination British Ichthyology owes so much, is the
only person who has procured an English specimen. That
solitary example is carefully preserved in the Museum of
the Natural History Society of Penzance, and we have
not had an opportunity of seeing it, but through the
kindness of Dr. Gray, of the British Museum, we have
been enabled to compare two excellent photographs of
the specimen with the figures given in the Histoire des
Poissons, and in Webb and Bertholet's Histoire Naturelle
des Isles Canaries. (Poiss. pi. 13.) With the latter the
photograph agrees so closely as to leave no doubt of the
specific identity of the fish they represent, and the former
differs merely in the lateral line, being a little more un-
dulated anteriorly. The lateral spots are not exhibited in
the photograph, its prototype being, probably, too young

THE DERBIO. 25

for the development of these markings. Cuvier regards
the Lichia tetracantha discovered by Mr. Bowdich near
the Gambia as merely a variety of this species, but from
a drawing of tetracantha made at Sierra Leone by Dr.
Mitchill, Surgeon in the Royal Navy, it appears to be a
considerably more oblong species, and instead of about
four spots on the fore part of the sides, there is a series
of ten smaller ones, extending nearly to the base of the
caudal. Its colour is bright ultramarine blue, and silvery
white below, the lateral spots being darker blue, and the
tips of the fins blackish-blue, as in glaucus. The true
glaucus was also obtained by Dr. Mitchill, off the Niger
in the Bight of Benin, and his drawing represents it as
of a darker blue than tetracantha, and of a considerably
deeper oval form. The following description of the
Derbio is drawn up from the photographs, with additions
furnished by Mr. Couch.

This gentleman states the length of the specimen to
have been thirteen inches and a half, and its height three
inches and seven-eighths. The comparative length, omit-
ting the acute caudal lobes, is thrice the height ; and the
head forms a sixth part of the total length, including the
whole caudal fin. The scales are small, and not strong.
The cheeks nacry and scaleless. The lateral line descends
obliquely without an abrupt curve from the suprascapular,
till it comes nearly over the first free anal spine, and a
little above mid-height, and from thence runs straight to
the central rays of the caudal fin without any keeling or
armature perceptible in the photograph.

The fin formula is —

D. VI.— 1 + 22: A. II.— 1 + 23 or 24.

The ventrals and pectorals are both small. There is a
couchant spine pointing forwards before the first dorsal,
which is composed of six detached spines, all nearly of

26 SCOMBRHXE.

equal height, and each with a triangular membrane in its
axilla. The soft dorsal and anal are alike, each being
higher in front, but not decidedly falcate, and each having
a short spine incumbent on the base of the first articulated
ray. Two detached spines stand in front of the anal
similar to those of the first dorsal, and midway between
them and the ventrals is the vent.

The caudal is deeply swallow-tailed.

There are several vertical oval spots or bars in a row
just above the lateral line, and touching it. These are
said in the Histoire des Poissons to be peculiar to the adult
fish. Mr. Couch says, that the dorsal aspect and the
lateral bars were of rather a dark blue ; the ventral
aspect from the mandible to the caudal, and including
the eye, was pale yellow, and the dark blotches on the
anterior tips of the soft dorsal and anal were well marked.
Cuvier describes the air-bladder as forked posteriorly, its
long points entering among the muscles of the tail on
each side of the anal interspinal bones : and he considers
the course of the lateral line without a decided elbow as
a mark by which the Derbio may be readily distinguished
from the Lichia amia, which is the second glaucus of Ronde-
let, the amia of Salviani, and the cerviola of the Sicilians.
In this second species the lateral line has a strong curva-
ture in form of the letter CQ . Willughby introduced
much confusion into the history of these two species,
having mistaken the Derbio or the first glaucus of Ron-
delet for the second one ; and Ray, Artedi, and Linnasus
have all, while correct on some points, fallen into error on
others in their accounts of the several species of Lichia.

BANKS'S OAR-FISH.

ACANTHOPTERT,

TJZNIJZDJE.

BANKS'S OAR-FISH.

Regalecus Banksii, GRAY, Pr. Zool. Soc. for 1849, p. 80.
Gymnetrus Banksii, Cuv. et VALEKC. Poiss. x. p. 365.

REGALECUS. Generic Characters. — Greatly compressed and elongated sword -
shaped fishes. Teeth minute or none. Dorsal fin rising on the occiput like a
plume. Caudal said to be continuous with the dorsal, and to embrace the
point of the tail, but seldom seen entire, and of doubtful form in most
species. Ventrals uni-radiate and very long, edged with membrane which
expands at the end. Branchiostegals seven. A very long slender tapering
stomach, of which three-fourths is csecal ; pancreatic caeca simple and very
numerous. Scales microscopical in the nacry epidermis, also scattered osteoid
tubercles in the skin. No air-bladder.

IN the Banksian library at the end of a quarto copy of
Pennant's British Zoology, published in 1776, is the fol-
lowing manuscript note : — u On Saturday, the 23rd day
of February 1788, was caught near Newlyn Quay, on
the sand at ebb-tide, a fish which measured in length
eight feet four inches, in breadth ten inches, and thick-
ness two inches and a half; its weight was forty pounds."
Another marginal note states further that " a gentleman

28

who saw this fish informed Capt. Chemming (Chelwyn ?
or Chirgwin ?) that the tail was not perfect." A figure
which accompanied these notices has been reproduced in
part, and of reduced size, by Dr. Gray, in a paper pub-
lished in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society, for
May 29, 1849. In this the front ray of the dorsal fin
standing on the forehead between the eyes is very long
and tapering, and curves forward before the face : the
following ten ra}^s diminish successively in length, and are
not represented as being connected by membrane : the
rest of the dorsal is comparatively low, and has only the
tips of the rays rising above the continuous membrane.
The ventrals have each one long ray dilated into a broadly-
oval pallette, apparently of membrane, folded or radiated.

Pasted into the same copy of Pennant there is also a
paragraph cut from the York Chronicle, stating that on
the 18th of March 1796 four women picked up a curious
and uncommon fish, which came ashore in Filey Bay.
They sold it to a man who carried it to York. Sir Joseph
Banks's correspondent sent him a tracing of a drawing of
the fish by Dr. Burgh, together with observations which
are here abridged from Dr. Gray's paper : — " Thirteen
feet long, one foot deep, three inches thick, head seven
inches long, eye one inch three-eighths in diameter. The
dorsal fin runs from the head to the other end, at which
there is no tail; it has 290 and 13 rays, and is red like
that of a roach or perch ; the pectoral has twelve ; the ven-
tral one ; no anal. Branchiostegous rays six. No teeth,
a soft tongue. Anus, four feet nine inches from the head.
The face, and inside of the mouth, black ; the irides sil-
very white. Though there was no caudal fin when I saw
it, it is not clear that he never had one, for there was an
appearance of mutilation in its place. — W. B."

Notices of the capture on our coasts of similar fish,

BANKS'S OAR-FISH, 29

but mostly too imperfect for the identification of species,
occur in various periodicals. The Annual Register re-
cords the taking of one of these at Whitby on the 22nd
of January 1759; and Mr. Stanton of Newcastle in-
formed Messrs. Hancock and Embleton, that about the
end of the 18th century he recollected the exhibition of
a similar fish in Newcastle. It was ten feet long, and two
inches thick. A sketch was made of it by Bewick the
celebrated wood-engraver, which has been unfortunately
mislaid. The same gentlemen were told by John Blackett
Anderson, of Walker, near Newcastle, that he recollects
the capture of two fishes about the year 1800, in a shallow
pool at the outer Fern Islands. The larger was eighteen
feet long, about a foot deep, and of a silvery colour. In
1796 one was got at Cullercoats, near Newcastle, as men-
tioned in a pamphlet published in 1849 by John Such,
of that town. On the 19th of March 1844, one was
stranded, after a severe north-east gale, at the village of
Crovie, in the estuary of the Doveran, near Macduff in
Banffshire, and was afterwards exhibited in the Town-hall
of Elgin. From the correspondence of Mr. John Martin
of the "Elgin Institution," with the late Dr. Johnston
of Berwick, and the sketches he sent, Mr. Yarrell enter-
tained no doubt of its specific identity with the Regalecus
to be fully described below, and whose portrait is placed
at the commencement of this article. Mr. Martin states the
measurements of the Crovie specimen to be, total length
twelve feet ; depth one foot ; thickness two inches and
three-quarters ; height of the dorsal fin two inches and a
half, length of the ventral rays three feet; length of the
pectorals two inches and a half. The head measured nine
inches from the symphysis of the mandible to the end of
the gill-cover ; and from thence to the vent the distance
was forty-six inches. There was no caudal fin. The

30

shaft of each ventral was about the thickness of a goose-
quill, was fringed on each side by membrane, and broken
short off at the extremity ; the ends having been thrown
away at the sea-side, their original length could not be
ascertained. The dorsal fin contained two hundred and
seventy-nine rays, of which fifteen standing on the head
were very tall, but were connected at the base by mem-
brane. The pectorals were supported by twelve rays. The
lateral line was straight, and about one-third of the height
above the ventral profile, except where it rose gradually
over the pectorals. The body is described, and the draw-
ings represent it, as having a slightly-tapering profile from
the operculum to the end, which is rather abrupt, with a
spur at its lower corner, and without any indication of a
caudal fin. If one existed, Mr. Martin thinks that it
must have been very slender. The whole body was
clothed by a delicate white skin with a silvery lustre, be-
neath which there lay alternate smooth and tuberculated
bands running the whole length of the body, palpable to
the finger through the outer skin, and becoming more
perceptible on its removal. Behind the pectoral fin, a
few dark bars, which crossed the body obliquely, were
very conspicuous when the fish was fresh, and the dorsal
had at first an orange tint.

Messrs. Hancock and Embleton's paper mentions that
one of the Preventive Service men, in the year 1845,
observed a fish of this kind in a pool near Alnmouth.
On his approach it bent its body into a circle, and
he, ignorantly thinking that it was going to spring
upon him, boldly attacked it with his cutlass and cut
off its head. It was sixteen feet long, eleven inches
deep, and six thick. In the struggles of the dying fish,
the sands around were covered with its delicate nacry
scales.

BANKS'S OAR-FISH. 31

On the 26th of March 1849, a fine fish of this genus
was captured by the crew of a fishing coble belonging to
Cullercoats, consisting of Bartholomew Taylor and his two
sons. It was much injured by the captors in their endea-
vours to secure it, and by subsequent handling during its
exhibition at Tynemouth, North and South Shields, and
Newcastle. Fortunately it was seen at the last-named
town by Albany Hancock, Esq., and Dr. Dennis Emble-
ton, who made drawings of it, and drew up a detailed
account of its external appearance and internal structure,
which was read at a meeting of the Tyneside Naturalists'
Club, and published in the Annals and Magazine of
Natural History for July 1849. From that paper the
following abridged extracts are taken by permission.

The fish, though much injured and greatly faded, was
fresh and had a uniform silvery-grey colour, except a few
irregular streaks and dark spots towards the fore-part of
the body, and there were remains of a bright iridescence
about the pectoral fin and head, a blue tint predomina-
ting. The body is excessively compressed, like a double-
edged sword-blade, its greatest thickness being below the
middle, and the dorsal edge is sharper than the ventral
one. The total length when the mouth is retracted is
twelve feet three inches, and the depth immediately be-
hind the gills eight inches and a half: two feet farther
back the greatest depth of eleven inches and a quarter is
attained, and at the end of the dorsal fin it has diminished
to three. The skin is covered with a silvery matter in
which the scales are invisible to the naked eye, but which
is easily detached and adheres to anything it comes in
contact with. Submitted to the microscope, this nacre
was found to consist of scales like those on the wing of a
moth. Round the hind border of the operculum there
is a broad dusky patch ; a crescentic dark mark exists

32

above the eye, and there are eight or nine narrow oblique
streaks on the side, which diminish to mere spots beyond
the vent. The lateral line descends gradually from the
suprascapula to within two inches of the ventral profile
at the vent, and continues descending as it proceeds to
the distal end of the fish. Four flattened ridges, each
more than an inch in breadth, reach from the head to the
tail above the lateral line, the longest and uppermost
commencing near the eye. The skin is studded with
numerous bony tubercles not regularly arranged, and in
the neighbourhood of the head they are replaced by de-
pressed indurations. On the ventral edge the tubercles
are numerous and have hooked tips pointing towards the
tail.

The head is small, measuring only nine inches to the
gill-opening ; the orifice of the mouth is circular and
capable of being protruded two or three inches by the
depression of the mandible. The tongue is small, smooth,
and prominent; there are no teeth, and the interior of
the mouth is black. Gill -plates proportionally large,
preoperculum crescentic, with the lower horn prolonged
forwards to the articulation of the mandible. Operculum
curved elliptically posteriorly, ending obtusely. Branchi-
ostegals seven. Branchial arches four, with tubercular
bristly rakers. Pharyngeal bones above and below fur-
nished with setaceous teeth.

The dorsal fin extends from between the front of the
orbits to within three inches of the distal extremity of
the fish. The twelve anterior rays were stated by the
captors to have been about fourteen inches long, and fur-
nished with a membrane on their posterior edges, which
grew wider upwards, somewhat like a peacock's feather.
The ends were broken off, but a continuous membrane
connected their bases, and their shafts appeared ragged

BANKS'S OAR-FISH. 33

with the remains of the torn membrane. In addition
to these there were 268 other rays whose acute points
overtopped the connecting membrane, or 280 dorsal rays
in all. About the middle of the fish, where the dorsal rays
are highest, excepting those on the head, they measure
upwards of three inches and a half, and at the termination
of the fin their height has decreased to one inch. Behind
the termination of the dorsal fin the edge of the back
slopes rapidly downwards to within an inch of the line of
the belly, and then forms a rounded point which is the
distal extremity of the fish. Both the upper and under
edges of this extremity are very thin, and the fishermen
insisted that when they took the fish this part was entire,
and that there was no tail-fin whatever. The edges may be
pressed together, and seem to fit. The pectorals are at-
tached low, and contain eleven rays. The ventral fins were
represented by a pair of very strong straight spines broken
short to the length of four inches, but were said to have
been originally twice that length, having even then broken
ends ; a membranous edge was visible at their bases.
The vertebrae, judging from elevations obscurely seen
through the muscles, were reckoned at 110. Fin-ray
formula —

D. 280: V. 1 : P. 11. Vertebrae 110?— Hancock and EmUeton, I.e.

Messrs. Hancock and Embleton's excellent paper may
be consulted for the internal anatomical structure, and
several particulars of external form, which have been
omitted here from want of space. *

In 1850, another example of this fish, alive but muti-
lated, was cast ashore on the Yorkshire coast, near Red-
car. It measured nearly twelve feet, and weighed sixty-
six pounds, as reported in the Zoologist (2709) by T. S.

* For a larger cut of the head copied from this paper, see foot of page 35,
VOL. I. (ZndSupp.) D

34

Rudd, Esq. In the same communication, mention is
made of one found on that coast several years previously
by a pilot named Slater Potts : if its length was correctly
stated at twenty -four feet, it is the largest example of this
species that has been recorded. Another was stranded
on the 17th of September 1852, near Millar's Stone, in
the Bay of Cromarty. This specimen was secured for
the museum of Mr. Dunbar at Inverness, and on the
dispersion of that collection some years ago, came into
the hands of a bird-stuifer of the same place, who kept
it hanging in his shop until he tired of looking at it,
and no purchaser offering, it was at length consigned by
him to the dust-cart.

A northern member of this genus was described by
Ascanius under the name of Ophidium Glesne in the
Copenhagen Memoirs for 1776, the generic name being
afterwards changed to Regalecus, by which he intended to
signify King of the Herrings. Glesne is the name of
a village near Bergen, where the fish was taken. This
species, which received other names from ichthyologists
who came after Ascanius, has been supposed to be the
same with the British fish ; and the case may be so, but
hitherto the Norwegian fish has been described by
Ascanius and Briinnich alone, and the one reckons only 126
rays in the dorsal fin, and the other 197, while the figures
given by these authors show a greater number. This
reckoning, however, is so different from the numbers of
the rays in the British fish, that they cannot be consi-
dered as the same species until the mistake, if there be
one, has been rectified by an accurate examination and
comparison of specimens. Gymnetrus Grillii of Lind-
roth, described in 1798, had the large number of 406
dorsal rays, with a total length of eighteen feet,
and ventrals measuring five. It is therefore safer for

BANKS'S OAR-FISH.

35

the present to keep Messrs. Hancock and Embleton's
fish distinct under the name of Banksii, proposed by M.
Valenciennes in the Histoire des Poissons. The right of
priority over the term Gymnetrus belongs to Regalecus,
and this is therefore used here, though M. Valenciennes
rejects it for its barbarity.

BANKS'S OAR-FISH (Hancock and Embleton).

36

JAWS OP COUCH'S SEA-BREAM. See page 5.

END OF SECOND SUPPLEMENT
TO FIRST VOLUME.

SECOND SUPPLEMENT

TO THE SECOND VOLUME OP

THE HISTORY OF BRITISH FISHES.

A NA OA NTHINI. PLEURONECTIDJ!.

AXISOMERI.

THE SAIL-FLUKE.

Zeugopterus ? velivolans. EDITOR of the Third Ed. of Br. Fishes.

DR. BAIKIE, writing from the banks of the Niger, re-
ferred to Dr. Alex. Dugiiid of Kirkwall for information
respecting the very curious habits of this fish, and that
gentleman, on being applied to, most kindly sent a sketch
made by a friend of his, said to be very correct, from
which the above wood-cut has been engraved. He also
furnished the following particulars of the history of the
fish. This Fluke, he says, is highly prized as an article
of food, its flesh being firm and white. It does not take
a bait, and he only once saw it caught in a net, but it
comes ashore, spontaneously, with its tail erected above
the water, like a boat under sail, whence its name. This
it does generally in calm weather, and on sandy shores,
and the country people residing near such places train

VOL. II. (ZndSupp.) £

2 PLEURONECTID^E.

their dogs to catch it. The following letter was written
by Mr. Robert Scarth, of North Ronaldshay, the north-
ernmost island of the Orkney group, where the Sail-fluke
is very common : — " It is never caught by hook or by net,
and I have in vain set ground lines for it in the South
Bay, baited with Lug-worms, Limpets and Sellocks,
neither have Flounder or Skate nets, drawn there, inclosed
a Sail-fluke. It seldom comes to the shore earlier than
October or later than April, though it is often driven
by storms on the beach, entangled among sea- weed.
The great supply is, however, obtained in the following
manner : — In the winter and early spring a pair of Black-
headed Gulls take possession of the Bay, drive away all
interlopers, and may be seen at daybreak every morning
beating from side to side, on the wing, and never both in
one place, except in the act of crossing as they pass. The
Sail-fluke skims the ridge of the wave towards the shore
with its tail raised over its back, and when the wave
recedes is left on the sand, into which it burrows so
suddenly and completely, that though I have watched its
approach, only once have I succeeded in finding its bur-
row. The Gull, however, has a surer eye, and casting
like a hawk, pounces on the Fluke, from which by one
stroke of his bill it extracts the liver. If not disturbed,
the Gull no sooner gorges this luscious morsel, than it
commences dragging the fish to some outlying rock,
where he and his consort may discuss it at leisure. By
robbing the Black-backs I have had the house supplied
daily with this excellent fish, in weather during which no
fishing-boat could put to sea. Close to the beach of South
Bay a stone wall has been raised to shelter the crops
from the sea-spray. Behind this we posted a smart lad,
who kept his eye on the soaring Gulls. The moment one
of the birds made its well-known swoop, the boy rushed

THE SAIL-FLUKE. 3

to the sea-strand, shouting with all his might. He was
usually in time to scare the Gull away and secure the
Fluke, but in almost every case with the liver torn out.
If the Gull by chance succeeded in carrying his prey off
to the rock, he and his partner set up a triumphant cack-
ling, as if deriding the disappointed lad. Seals often
pursue these Flukes into the bay, and frequently leave
serviceable morsels unconsumed. The Sail-fluke exhibits
its gambols most frequently before a storm, or when a thaw
succeeds a frost. It is the most delicious fish of our seas,
but loses its flavour by a day's keeping." — 19 Feb. 1849.

Length of a specimen, twenty-one inches. Height, ex-
cluding the fins, seven inches and a half, or including
them, ten inches. Weight three pounds.

D. 87 : A. 69 : P. 11 : V. 5 : C. 19|.

The dorsal commences before the upper eye, which is
three-quarters of an inch before the lower one. The
rough lateral line is much arched over the pectoral fin.
Scales large and striated from the centre, roughish on the
pale belly, and very small on the fronts of the fin-rays.
There is one row of minute sharp teeth on each jaw, and
also some teeth on the vomer. Tongue round and coni-
cal. Operculum and interoperculum thin and very dia-
phanous, the bony plates, and the cheeks being as thin as
silk paper, so that the smallest type may be read through
them. The left or coloured side of the fish is like that
of the Common Dab, yellowish -brown, with scattered
dark blotches. — Another specimen weighed four pounds,
and had ninety-one dorsal rays, with seventy-five anal
ones. — (Dr. Duguid.)

The oval of the body is wider vertically than that of the
Smdhvarf (PI. 50) of the Scandinaviens Fiskar, but nar-
rower than the ovals of either of our English Top-knots.
In the facial profile and forms of the vertical fins there is

E 2

4 PLKURONECTID.E.

much similarity between the Smahvarf and the Sail fluke,
but none of the four specimens of the former, noticed by
Sundevall, have so many dorsal and anal rays as the
Orkney Fluke. In the latter, also, the upper eye is more
distinctly behind the lower one, and the mandible pro-
trudes farther. Sundevall makes no mention of trans-
parent cheeks ; for the present, therefore, they are de-
scribed as distinct, such a proceeding being less injurious
to science than the junction of two species divers in
structure and habits under one name. In the absence of
a specimen, the Sail-fluke is placed in the genus Zeugop-
terus interrogatively. A single row of jaw- teeth only is
mentioned by Dr. Duguid, but he probably means late-
rally, where the Smahvarf has only one row, though
there is a crowded patch at the symphyses of its jaws.

SUGAR-LOAF, SUTHEKLANDSHIRE.

THE CONNEMARA SUCKER.
A CA NTHOPTERI.

THE CONNEMARA SUCKER.

Lepidogaster cephalus, THOMPS. Nat. Hist, of Irel. iii. p. 214.

THE authority for this species is a specimen, which was
taken in Roundstone Bay, Connemara, on the western
coast of Ireland, and is preserved in the collection of the
late Dr. Ball of Dublin. It has not been observed on the
English coasts, nor has any drawing been made of it to
which we have access. Mr. Thompson published an
account of it in the Annals of Natural History (iii. 34),
which has been reprinted in the posthumous edition of
his work above quoted. The following passages are
extracted from his paper.

" This fish equals Lepidogaster Cornubiensis in size, but
differs from it in the dorsal and anal fins occupying a
considerable portion of its length, and in having a greater
breadth of head with a narrower snout : the body like-
wise is more depressed, and narrows more suddenly be-
hind the ventral disk into the tapering tail. Its specific
characters are — a very minute cirrus before each eye ;
dorsal and anal fins unconnected with the caudal ; ven-
tral disk small.

Br. 5 : D. 15 : A. 10 : P. 25 and 4 : C. 15 conspicuous, 20 in all.

"Head very broad posteriorly, forming more than one-
third of the entire length ; in front of each orbit, and on
a line with its upper border, there is a cirrus so minute
as to be scarcely visible without the aid of a lens ; eyes
large, two of their diameters apart : teeth pointed and
numerous on the jaws, the outer premaxillary ones being
the largest; gill-opening small; ventral disk smaller, and

6 GOBIESOCnXE.

different from that of L. Cornubiensis. Dorsal fin origin-
ating behind the middle of the fish, and continued to
near the caudal, with which it does not unite ; anal fin
commencing farther back, but reaching as far ; the last
rays of the two fins, when laid down, touching the base of
the caudal : rays of all the fins jointed, but not branched :
vent situated midway between the posterior edge of the
ventral disk and the end of the caudal fin : a short anal
tubercle." — Thompson, I. c.

The Lepidog aster Webbianus of Valenciennes, which in-
habits the seas of the Canary Islands, has two cutaneous
filaments at the nostrils on each side, and so has also the
L. zebrinus of Lowe, which inhabits the Madeira coasts,
and is perhaps the same species with Webbianus. The
Lepidogaster chupasangue of the same seas, which Mr.
Lowe thinks may be L. Decandollii of Risso, has no nasal
cirrus, and the vertical fins are not connected to each
other.

VIEW OF LANCRIGG.

THE COMMON BRITISH STURGEON.
G AN 01 DEI.

THE COMMON BRITISH STURGEON.

Acipenser Thompson*, BALL, Thompson's Nat. Hist, of Ireland, iii. 245.
,, sturio, Common Sturgeon, PENN. Brit. Zool. iii. 164, pi. 22.

,, ,, ,, DONOV. Brit. Fish. pi. 55.

,, ,, ,, ,, JENYNS, Man. 493.

,, ,, Sturgeon, FLEM. Brit. Anim. 173.

AciPENSERiDJ3. Family Characters. — Form elongated, pentagonal ; the
angles of the body formed by the crests of five longitudinal rows of bony
shields ; mouth on the ventral aspect, protractile, toothless ; no branchio"
stegals ; internal skeleton cartilaginous, except the basal cephalic plate of
bone, which extends backwards under the first five dorsal vertebras ; vertical
fins supported anteriorly by short bony rays ; a long spiral intestinal valve ;
pancreas glandular.

ACIPENSER. Generic Characters. — Snout tapering, beak-shaped, with four
barbels depending from its ventral surface before the mouth ; an accessory
gill, and, at the upper border of the gill-cover, a spout-hole ; trunk of the
tail not flattened.— HecJcel.

THE STURGEONS are Ganoid fishes of a lengthened
shape, having a cartilaginous skeleton, and the protractile
mouth situated under the eyes on the ventral surface
considerably behind the tip of the snout. The jaws are
much more protractile than those of a Shark, and consist
of the premaxillaries going round the upper or anterior
border of the mouth, with small maxillaries articulated
to them laterally and connected also to the palatines.
The mandible is formed principally of a pair of bony
limbs, united to each other at the symphysis, ending late-

8

rally in a joint furnished with a trochlear cartilage, and
moving on the wing-like process of each palatine. A
thick fleshy lip, sometimes lobed, covers the premaxil-
laries ; but the mandibular lip is deficient in some groups
of species, except at the corners of the mouth ; and in
other groups the posterior lip crosses the orifice, either
in form of a continuous soft roll, or with a mesial depres-
sion, or even a mesial interspace The fulness of the
Lips, in conjunction with the forms of the dorsal crests
and a few other characters, have been made to serve for
grouping the species. The gills, as in the osseous fishes,
consist of five movable arches, and are comb-like, with
free tips : a pectinated accessory gill also adheres to the
inner surface of the gill-cover, and there is a small spout-
hole close behind and above it.

Of the five rows of bony shields on the body, one pro-
tects the ridge of the back from the occiput to the dorsal
fin ; a lateral row extends on each flank from the shoul-
der to the caudal fin ; and a row on each side of the belly
ends at the ventrals. Each dorsal shield is more or less
distinctly keeled by an acute longitudinal crest, whose
apex, in some groups of species, overhangs the posterior
edge of the shield, but in other groups is central, the
plate sloping off from it both before and behind. The
skin intervening between the rows of shields varies also in
character, being naked and smooth, or studded with bony
grains, either of a granular form, or star-shaped, or with
acute points or even hooks. In Ac. Guldenstddii of
Brandt, which is the Ac. sturio of Pallas, the skin of the
breast between the coracoid shields is set with elevated
star-like or roundish and denticulated ossicles ; while in
Ac. nasus of Heckel the same region is closely covered
with flat ganoid scales, like those of Lepidosteus. In Ac.
schypa of Giildenstadt the same part shows stellate ossicles,

THE COMMON BRITISH STURGEON. 9

many of which emit prickles. The Schypa is var. 0 and y
of the Sturio of Pallas, who obtained it in the Wolga and
Obi.

Age changes the form and size of the body-shields of
the Sturgeons, their crests becoming lower and blunter,
and their disks smaller, so that in aged fish the sharply-
pentagonal form of the body is lost, and the ventral
shields often wholly disappear.

The fins, seven in number, are sustained by crowded
jointed, and generally flexible rays, finely serrated on
the edges ; the short graduated rays in front of the dor-
sal and anal are more or less bony. The anal is situated
under the posterior part of the dorsal, which is itself
placed far back. A stout, tall, bony first ray supports
the pectoral fin.

The skull is cartilaginous throughout, but is supported
beneath by an osseous occipito-sphenoidal plate, which
extends posteriorly under five cervical vertebrae, and is
prolonged anteriorly into a slender vomerine and eth-
moidal process ; protection is afforded to the skull above
by a vaulted crust of ganoid scales or shields, which have
received names from Kittary,* Fitzinger and Heckel f
and others, accordant with the regions that they cover. J
In the views of the upper surface of the head introduced
in the subsequent pages, the posterior mesial shield is the
first of the dorsal series ; anterior to it is the single
occipital shield also occupying a mesial place ; and whose
anterior process enters some way between the coronal or
parietal shields which form a pair and come in contact

* Dr. Modeste Kittary : Bull, de la Soc. Imp. des Natur. de Moscov.
1850.

-j- Annalen der Wien. Erster Band.

J Professor Owen observes that the attempt to ascertain the homologies of
these cranial shields with the true epicranial bones of osseous fishes is diffi-
cult and unsatisfactory.

10 ACIPKNSER1M.

with each other for a part of their length ; before the
coronals and between the eyes lie the frontal shields form-
ing another pair ; in the Frith of Forth Narrow-nosed
Sturgeon the frontals are wholly separated by one or
more interfrontal plates; the postfrontal and prefrontal
shields are exterior to the main frontals in the positions
that their names indicate ; laterally with respect to the
coronals lie the temporal shields, often coalescent with
a squamosal piece ; and behind them occupying the
posterior lateral angles of the head, and protecting on each
side a styloid process of the cartilaginous skull (which
Owen terms a representation of the par-occipital, but
which Kittary calls the mastoid), lies a shield that articu-
lates with the first dorsal, the occipital, and squamosal,
and the suprascapular : the last-named shield being the
first of the humeral chain that descends behind the gill-
opening, heads the lateral series of body -shields, all of
which partake of its scalene form ; the chevron-shaped
humeral shield gives support to the bony ray of the pec-
toral ; and the coracoid, the largest piece of the humeral
chain, has wholly a ventral aspect, its crest being on a line
with the crests of the ventral body-shields ; the supra-
scapular, opercular, and such cranial shields as have a
lateral aspect, are represented in the profiles of the head.

The arterial bulb of the Sturgeons is furnished with
two rows of valves at its commencement, and with one
row at its termination. The swim-bladder is very large,
and communicates with the gullet by a wide hole. In
the glandular conglomeration of their pancreatic caeca
the Sturgeons resemble the Sharks.

Heckeland Kner* divide the genus into six groups, three
of which, viz. the Lionisci, Acipenserini, and Helopes, have
the dorsal shields highest at their posterior edges, and the
* Siissw. Fische cler Ostreich. Mon. 1858.

THE COMMON BRITISH STURGEON. 11

two first-named have, moreover, fringed barbels, characters
which have been attributed to no British Sturgeon. In
the other three groups, Antacei, Sturiones, and Husones,
the ridges of the dorsal shields are pointed in the middle,
and slope down anteriorly and posteriorly. These groups
are further characterized as follows : — 4. Antacei, having
simple and not fringed barbels, a rudimentary mandibular
lip, the skin between the rows of body-shields studded
with stellate ossicles, and the snout short and broad. 5.
Sturiones, having a swollen posterior lip, contracted in
the middle, simple barbels, and the skin between the rows
of body-shields granulated by blunt ossicles. 6. Husones,
having the mandibular lip divided in the middle ; flat,
tape-like barbels, and the skin roughened by pointed
ossicles. The species are distinguished from each other
by the relative positions of the osseous centres of their
principal cranial shields. With respect to the value for
this purpose of the form of the shields, Dr. Ball says : —
" I have collected many specimens, and I do not think
that the broadness or sharpness of the nose is a specific
distinction, as no two of my specimens can be said to
agree in the shape of that member, nor in the arrange-
ment of the scales on it and on the head. A classifica-
tion of the variations of my numerous examples will
reduce the British Sturioj Thompsoni and latirostris to a
single species." Mr. Thompson also observes that " the
precise form of the bony plates on the head is of no value
as a specific character, neither is the breadth of the
snout." These opinions of the Irish naturalists are
shared by several English ichthyologists, and the subject
requires to be worked out by an investigator who has
access to a sufficient number of examples from various
British localities, and an opportunity of comparing them
with specimens collected from the Continental rivers.

2 ACIPENSERTD^.

Bloch's figure is worthless from the want of correct
details.

Sturgeons named, evidently from their size, Stor,
Storje, Stoer, and Storjer, by the Scandinavians, inhabit
the Baltic, the German Ocean, the English and Irish
Channels, and the Mediterranean, Black Sea, Caspian,
and Baikal. They abound also in the waters of North
America which fall into the Atlantic and Pacific, but
they do not appear to frequent rivers which flow into the
icy seas. They feed at the bottom, in deep water, be-
yond the ordinary reach of sea-nets, and are therefore
very rarely taken, except in friths, estuaries, or rivers,
which they enter for the purpose of spawning. They
are more frequently captured in the Scottish waters than
on the southern coasts of England, and have been taken,
according to Thompson, in the Irish counties of Cork,
Derry, Kilkenny, Wexford, Dublin, Down, and Antrim.
Examples are by no means uncommon in the fishmongers'
shops of London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin, and
other large towns, a few coming into the hands of the
principal dealers every season. One caught in a stake-
net near Findhorn in Scotland in July 1833, measured
eight feet six inches in length, and weighed two hundred
and three pounds. Pennant records the capture of one
in the Esk which weighed four hundred and sixty pounds ;
and a head prepared by Mr. Stirling of the Anatomical
Museum of the University of Edinburgh, was cut from a
Sturgeon caught near Alloa, said to weigh, when entire,
fifty stones, or seven hundred pounds ; its length was
nine feet.

The debris of crustaceans and half-digested pieces of
fish, mixed with decaying vegetable matters and mud, have
been found in the stomachs of Sturgeons, and their food
is probably any soft animal or vegetable organisms that

THE COMMON BRITISH STURGEON. 13

they find at the bottom. The flesh of the Sturgeon, like
that of most cartilaginous fishes, is more firm and compact
than that of osseous fishes ; it generally contains much
yellow fat, and is well-flavoured, easy of digestion, and
very nutritious. Stewed with rich gravy, it forms a dish
in high request for the table. When luxury was at its
height in Imperial Rome, a Sturgeon was, according to
A.thenseus, the most honoured entree in sumptuous re-
pasts ; and Pliny tells us that it was crowned with flowers,
and the slaves who bore it into the triclinium were also
garlanded. Ovid calls it noble, either because of its
costliness or of its excellence.

Tuque peregrinis Acipensar nobilis undis.

At a later period the price of a Sturgeon had fallen in
Rome to four scudi,when a competition among the pur-
veyors of the Catholic dignitaries assembled to elect a
pope, in succession to Paul, produced an instantaneous
rise in the market, and Cardinal Gualtheri had to pay
seventy scudi for his Sturgeon. (Richler, Ichth.) In the
time of our first Henry, the Sturgeon was reserved for
the king's table, and even in the present day, when one is
caught in the Thames within the jurisdiction of the
Lord Mayor, it is called a Royal Fish, implying that it
ought to be sent to the Queen. In Russia and other
regions where Sturgeons abound, the roe dried and
pressed forms the Caviare of commerce ; and the swim-
bladder treated in a particular manner furnishes high-
priced isinglass.

The editor of the present edition of British Fishes has
not had the advantage of personally inspecting the spe-
cimens that Mr. Yarrell had before him when he wrote
his account of the Common Sturgeon, but he has seen
portions of eight specimens caught in the Frith of Forth,

14 ACIPENSERID/E.

and as such of these as have their cranial plates present a
near agreement with each other in external characters,
and are evidently of one species, he has drawn up an
account of that species in considerable detail, adopting
for it the specific appellation of Thompson*, suggested by
Dr. Ball. It differs in several important characters from
the Ac. sturio of Heckel and Kner. These Frith of Forth
examples agree generally with a pencil sketch sent to Mr.
Yarrell by Jonathan Couch, Esq., of the cranial shields
of a Sturgeon caught at Lamorna in Cornwall, in May
1851. The species, therefore, has an extensive range
along the British Coasts, and may be the one to which
the not very appropriate name of " Sharp-nosed " has
been usually applied by English ichthyologists, though a
more comprehensive comparison is needed to establish
that as a fact.

Description of a Sturgeon caught in the Frith of Forth,
and preserved in the Museum of the University of Edin-
burgh. Length nearly six feet. The barbels are rather
nearer to the tip of the snout than to the mouth, and

THE COMMON BllTTISH STURGEON. 15

when laid back do not reach the latter. They are taper-
ing and roundish, but in the dry state show a furrow as
if they were composed of two binate cartilaginous rays.
Other Frith of Forth specimens do not exhibit this fur-
row. The lips, having shrunk so that their true form
cannot be ascertained, are not described. Shields or buck-
lers, closely connected by suture, cover the whole dorsal
aspect of the head. They are deeply pitted, the pits
being only partially disposed in rows so as to form radi-
ating furrows. These well-defined depressions are sepa-
rated by thin walls, which are crenulated, but do not rise
above the general level, so that the character of the sur-
face is not granular. The osseous centres of most of these
shields may be made out, but they do not rise into acute
crests as in the young fish. Certain lines or ledges are
visible rather by their smoothness than by their elevation,
and the most remarkable of them present the profile of an
obelisk whose apex is in the centre of the occipital shield,
whence short lines deflect on each side to the osseous cen-
tres of the coronals. Lines proceeding from thence to the
centres of the frontals form the sides of the obelisk. Other
less conspicuous lines radiate from the same centres of
the frontals, namely, backwards over the temporals, and
forwards towards the nasal regions, with a convergence
coincident with the narrowing of the snout. The poly-
gonal occipital shield receives the anterior point of the
first dorsal shield into a sharp mesial notch, and emits
anteriorly a salient acute process that enters between the
coronals for nearly one half of their length, these plates
coming in contact with each other for only about a third
of their length, and having the point of an interfrontal
plate insinuated between their anterior ends. This ob-
long interfrontal, and two other intercalary pieces, larger,
but otherwise similar to the polygonal shields which

16 ACIPENSERUXZE.

closely cover the whole upper surface of the snout, sepa-
rate the frontals wholly from each other. The osseous
centres of the temporal shields are somewhat nearer to
the tip of the snout than those of the coronals are. On
the left side of the specimen a small squamosal interposes
between the temporal and mastoid shield, but on the other
side this piece is confluent with the temporal. A mode-
rate inclination of the surfaces of the coronals towards
the mesial line makes a longitudinal furrow, which disap-
pears anteriorly, the interfrontal plates being nearly flat,
and the snout flatly convex transversely. Much of the
gill-flap is occupied by the large opercular shield, which
is marked by pits and furrows, with thin intervening
crenated walls distinctly radiating from a point near the
posterior edge of the plate. This shield being visible
from above merely in profile is not represented in the cut.
Behind and beneath the eye there is a rough rectangular
chevron which, in form and position, represents the pre-
operculum of osseous fishes. On the under surface of
the snout a raised ledge, narrow at the barbels and widen-
ing gradually in running forwards, as in the Ac. sturio of
Heckel, is covered either by a single slightly-rough plate,
or by several coalescent ones. The humeralv*plate is
deeply pitted, and the coracoid is marked by distinctly-
radiating furrows and pits.

The body-shields are radiately furrowed and pitted,
and have thin longitudinal crests. Eleven saddle-formed
shields occupy the ridge of the back before the dorsal
fin, the fourth or fifth of the series being the largest, and
the ridges of all highest in the middle. The scalene
lateral shields, lying between the suprascapular and
caudal fin, are thirty in number. In other specimens
their number varies from twenty-nine to thirty-two, there
being generally more on one side of the fish than on the

THE COMMON BRITISH STURGEON. 17

other. Heckel and Kner describe the middle lateral
shields of their Ac. sturio as having' a • styloid process
which proceeds forwards beneath the skin to the pre-
ceding shield, and is said to be characteristic of the
species ; but in the Frith of Forth Sturgeons no such
process exists in any one of the whole lateral series, there
being merely a notch with a flexible tube, corresponding
to the lateral line of osseous fishes. There is, however,
a strong and distinct smooth styloid process from the
front of all the ventral shields of the Frith of Forth spe-
cimens, except the first two of the series. These ventral
shields are also unequal in number, on the two sides of
the fish, and vary in the specimens from nine to eleven.

The skin between the dorsal and lateral rows of shields
is pretty thickly studded with star-like ossicles, inter-
mingled with much more minute angular grains. A
cluster of these ossicles is represented under the prece-
ding wood-cut. A pair of small shields intervenes be-
tween the dorsal series and the dorsal fin, and on each
side of the base of this fin there are about ten star-like
ossicles larger than the others. Below the lateral shields
the distinctly-stellate ossicles become fewer, and the irre-
gular, crested grains more numerous. Between the limbs
of the coracoids, and more especially a little further back
below the pectorals, the skin is made rough by extremely
irregular ossicles, apparently formed by the confluence of
several minute angular grains and acute points, and this
roughness continues onwards to the vent. The integu-
ment before the opercular shield is studded with small
roundish and irregular plates, all with radiating lines
from flat centres, and small plates of more oblong forms,
but various outlines roughen the surface between the
mouth and the coracoids.

The dorsal fin is supported by forty-one rays, the first

VOL. II. (2nd Snpp.) F

1.8 ACIPENSERIDJl.

being a flat, longitudinally-oval plate resembling the dorsal
shields in size and texture, but having a small posterior
peak, which rises as the first of the rays. About six
stumps, seemingly bony and gradually increasing in height,
follow it, and are incumbent on each other and on the
flexible rays. Behind the dorsal two heart-shaped plates
follow one another 011 the ridge of the tail. The anal,
which in this specimen has been injured posteriorly, con-
sists in others of twenty-five rays, the first being very
short and incumbent, and in fact the peak of an oblong
flat plate, as in the dorsal. Between this plate or fulcrum
and the vent there are three pairs of small shields. An
upper low caudal fin is composed of a long strap-shaped
rough plate with a posterior peak, and of eighteen or
nineteen firm, slender, jointless rays lying closely tiled
on one another. Underneath these inflexible rays there
is a triangular lateral space on each side, which is densely
covered by rough, keeled, bony eminences. The under
portion and main part of the caudal is lobed anteriorly,
and contains numerous jointed rays. In young individuals
the anterior under lobe is said not to be developed. The
pectoral contains thirty-eight rays, which are prickly on
the edges, and the first one is stout and bony, seem-
ingly formed by the coalescence of about ten rays, whose
number is shown by the prickly ridges which rib its
surface.

Dr. James McBain, of Leith, possesses the head of a
Sturgeon that was caught near Stirling, in which the
cranial plates correspond almost exactly with those of the
specimen described above, except that the squamosals on
both sides are coalescent with the mastoidal shields. In
this preparation the thin vertical plate of bone which
descends from the mastoidal shield into the cranial car-
tilage is well shown. Dr. McBain's fish seems to have

THE COMMON BRITISH STURGEON. 19

been nearly one-third larger than the one in the Edin-
burgh University Museum described above.

Another perfect specimen of smaller size, being only
three feet eight inches and a half long, preserved in the
Museum of the Free Kirk College of Edinburgh, presents
also a close similarity in the cranial plates to the two
preceding, but the squamosals are both united to the
temporals, and the mastoids have consequently smaller
disks. In this younger fish the pits and furrows in the
shields are deeper and more distinctly radiated from
osseous centres. The crests of the dorsal shields are
higher, and the styloid anterior processes of the ventral
shields are very distinctly perceptible through the skin.
The ossicles which stud the skin of the body are more
generally and perfectly star-like, more of the rays being
acute. There are twenty-nine lateral shields on one side,
and thirty-two on the other, and the ventral shields on
the right side number ten, bu.t there are only nine on the
left side. The fin-rays are —

D. 41: A. 25: P. 1 | 37 : V. 27 or 28.

The osseous centres of the temporals are equidistant
from the tip of the snout with those of the coronals, instead
of being a little nearer, as in the other two examples, the
difference being probably due to the squamosals having
in this example a common centre with the temporals.
The snout is also narrower, and the shields covering it
are closely pressed together so as to seem confluent.
This probably arises from the cartilage not having been
so fully cleared out in preparation, and shrinking much
in drying. To this cause also may perhaps be attributed
the very slender snouts of some of the younger Stur-
geons preserved in English Museums. The exact place
of capture of this individual is not mentioned on the

F 2

20 ACIPENSERID^l.

label attached to it, but it has a special interest as
belonging to the Museum formed by the late Professor
Fleming, and, therefore, representing the Acipenser sturio
of his British Animals.

In the Museum of the College of Surgeons of Edin-
burgh, there is a stuffed Sturgeon in excellent order,
which measures six feet and a half in length, and does
not differ materially in the form and arrangement of the
cranial shields from that of the University Museum.
The shields both on the head and body are, however,
more deeply pitted and furrowed, their radiation is more
complete, and the intervening walls of the furrows are
more granulated ; more of the imbedded ossicles also are
star-shaped. There are eleven dorsal shields ; thirty-two
lateral ones on the left side, thirty on the right side ; and
the ventral shields are ten and eleven on the right and
left sides respectively. The label to this Sturgeon does
not indicate its place of capture.

In the Anatomical Museum of Edinburgh University,
there are preparations of several Sturgeons caught near
Alloa, and in other parts of the Frith of Forth, made to
exhibit the structure of the cartilaginous cranium and
other internal parts. One of these shows that the
occipital spine of the cartilaginous cranium is acute,
and that it does not project so far back as the mastoid
or par-occipital processes which are also acute. Kittary's
figure of the cartilaginous cranium of his Ac. sturio, an
inhabitant of the Caspian, represents the occiput and
snout as being both widely rounded (/. c. PL vi. f. 5).

Taking Heckel and Kner as the best authorities for
the continental Ac. siurio, and more especially for the
fish of that name in the Danube, we find that, though
their figures and description present many characters in
common with the Frith of Forth Sturgeon, there are

THE COMMON BRITISH STURGEON. 21

some points of difference which prevent us from pro-
nouncing on their identity without further investigation.
The specific marks they assign to their sturio are, " pre-
maxillary lip with an incurvature, short barbels, osseous
centres of the temporals nearer to the point of the snout
than those of the coronals ; the process of the occipital
shield that interposes between the ends of the coronals
broad and chisel-shaped or truncated, and the coracoid
bucklers roughly granulated, not rayed." Supposing
these characters to be constant, the last-mentioned one and
the truncation of the salient process of the occipital do not
correspond with those parts in the British fish. The skin
also of the Austrian Sturio is described as being studded
with rough, blunt ossicles, mostly uniform in size, being
merely a little larger near the head, but nowhere either
radiated or stellate. In the form of the dermal ossicles
the Frith of Forth Sturgeon agrees with the Antacei
rather than with the Sturiones, but not with any of the
six Antacei figured in Heckel and Kner's book. The
inflexion of the upper lip belongs to all these Antacei
except A. schypa.

Respecting the young, the Austrian authors so often re-
ferred to say that Ae. sturio, when not exceeding ten inches
in length, has a stiletto-shaped snout bent upwards, the
occipital enters further between the coronals ; in place of
the interfrontal shields there is a fontenelle, and the under
anterior caudal lobe is not developed. In the Museum
of the Free Kirk College at Edinburgh there is a Stur-
geon, about eighteen inches long, which may probably
be the young of the Frith of Forth species, described at
such length in the preceding pages. It has a slender,
elongated snout, evidently greatly shrunk in drying, but
the arrangement of the cranial shields has much resem-
blance to that which exists in the older fish. The inter-

22 ACIPENSERIDJE.

frontal plate is composed of six pieces, and the squamosals
are not united to either the mastoids or temporals. The
reason for entertaining a doubt of the identity of the
species is the difference of character of the surface of
both cranial and body-shields. In the small specimen
the roughness of the plates is produced by round grains of
various sizes disposed in radiating lines with furrows be-
tween, while in the old the crenulated .edges of the thin
walls that bound the depressions do not rise above the
general level. The osseous centres form in the young
thin crests, which on the dorsal shields have a hooked
apex. A continuous crest runs from the centre of the
temporal along the side of the head to that of the mas-
toid ; and owing to the greater elevation of the centres
of the coronals the mesial trough is deeper than in the
larger fish, but the lines which in the latter form the pro-
file of an obelisk are not evident. The suprascapular is
pitted with radiating grooves towards its edges, and the
coracoid is also decidedly radiated. The skin between
the rows of body-shields is studded with roundish, irre-
gular, very small osseous grains, the larger ones being
radiated on the edges. In the recent state this radiation
would be concealed by the epidermis. The barbels are
short, tapering, and more remote from the tip of the
snout than in larger fish. An under caudal lobe is al-
ready formed. The body-shields number fourteen on the
dorsal row ; thirty-eight on the right side in a line with
the suprascapular, and forty on the left side ; eleven
ventral ones on the right side, and ten on the left. The

fin-rays are —

D. 37 : V. 27 : A. 26.

The osseous centres of the coronals and temporals are
equidistant from the tip of the snout.

The following wood-cut, reproduced from the first

THE COMMON BRITISH STURGEON.

edition of British Fishes, resembles the young Sturgeon
of the Free Kirk Museum in the middle ledge of the
ventral aspect of the snout, not being dilated gradually
towards the point, as in the larger examples. The scale
is too small to give a correct idea of the form of the lips,
and the figure was probably taken from a small and dried
specimen.

This wood-cut, which was introduced into the second
edition of British Fishes, represents an arrangement of
the cranial shields, differing from all the Frith of Forth
examples in the want of the interfrontal plates, and in
the longer tapering prolongation of the salient process of
the occipital shield : the squamosals, it will be observed,
are distinct pieces. The British Museum possesses a
Sturgeon from Teignmouth which is four feet and three-

24 ACIPENSERID^E.

quarters long, and another from the Thames, both with
cranial shields similar to those of the cut. The barbels
are short, tapering, and a little flattened, and the ossicles
in the skin are partly stellate, but mostly minute and
angular, as a sketch obligingly made by Mr. Gerard
shows. This gentleman also mentions that the coracoid
shields are netted, grooved, and radiated, and that the
cranial shields are grooved and radiated with a series of
ridges connecting the centres of the principal pairs of
shields. If this be not a species distinct from the Frith
of Forth Sturgeon it is at least a notable variety, but to
be ranked equally with it among the Antacei, if the form
of the mandibular lip will allow, and not with the Stu-
riones of Heckel and Kner. There is still needed a good
description of the recent fish in various stages of its
growth. This article has been extended to an unusual
length, but accuracy did not seem attainable otherwise.
In the terminating vignette, which appeared in the second
edition of British Fishes, the intervals between the shields
and the smallness of the opercular plate denote that the
original was a young fish, though it does not show the
thin elevated crests of the small specimen in the Free
Kirk Museum.

THE GRAY NOTIDANUS. 25

PL A GIOSTOMI. NOT J DA NID&.

SQUALL

THE GRAY NOTIDANUS.

Notidanus griseus, JONATHAN COUCH, Zool. for 1846, p. 1337, fig.
Hexanchus ,, MULL, und HENLE, Plagiost. p. 80.

,, ,, GRAY, Cat. of Chondropt. Brit. Mus. p. 67.

NOTIDANID.E. Family Characters. — Sharks with a single dorsal and an
anal fin. Head flat. A small three -cornered nasal lappet. Upper fold at
the corner of the mouth very large, the under one small. Nictitating mem-
brane wanting. Tongue adherent. Spout-holes small, perpendicular. Six
or seven stigmata, diminishing successively in length, and all before the pec-
toral fin. A mesial tooth on the mandible : the next five or six under-teeth
form a saw, by the projection of their conical cusps ; the fore or inner
borders of the mandibular teeth are either smooth or wholly and finely
serrated ; and the distal teeth of that jaw are small and flat. In the upper
jaw the teeth are longer, more slender and more pointed, and their first
denticle is much longer than the rest : the outer border of the upper teeth
is thick, the inner one finely serrated towards its base : the foremost are
hook-shaped, on a broad base, and are clustered : the next in succession
have exteriorly one or two lateral denticles ; and towards the corner of the
mouth, the upper teeth resemble the under ones. Lateral line distinct. The
single dorsal stands behind the ventrals, and partly before, partly over the
anal. The caudal has small under lobes, with a notch towards the end,
which is obliquely or directly docked. No caudal pits. Intestinal valve
screw-shaped.

NOTIDANUS. — The only genus, subdivided by Hafiinesque into Hexanchus
and Heptanchus, according as the gill-openings are six or seven.

IN the year 1846 a specimen of this fish, caught by a
fisherman at Polperro, was brought to Jonathan Couch,
Esq., who immediately recognised it as the grey sex-
branchial Notidanus, and he soon afterwards published
an account of it with a figure in the Zoologist (1337).

26 NOTIDANID^.

A specimen had been also taken in the preceding year
by Captain Swinburne, and presented to the British
Museum, which likewise possesses a portion of the jaw
from Dr. Mantell's collection. The origin of the latter
is not stated, and the other two are the only instances
known of this Shark being taken in the British seas.

The nostril is nearer to the tip of the rounded snout than
to the angle of the mouth, and the spout-hole nearer to the
first gill-opening than to the eye. The hooked upper front
teeth rise from a broad base, and the succeeding seven or
eight large teeth are serrated on the distal edge, the first
denticle being decidedly the tallest. The front man-
dibular tooth has lateral serratures, but no middle cusp,
and the following five or six broad teeth on each side are
equally serrated on the exterior and longer border by
from nine to eleven denticles : their thinner inner borders
are finely serrated. Dorsal notched on the edge, so placed
that the anal commences before the middle of its base, and
half-way between the vent and the caudal fin. Pectoral
quadrangular, with rounded corners. Anal rounded ante-
riorly, pointed posteriorly. A distinct under lobe to the

THE GRAY NOTTDANUS.

caudal with an obliquely-cut end. Scales entire and very
small, leaf-shaped, with a medial keel which reaches to
the acute point. — Miiller and Henle.

Mr. Couch's specimen was two feet two inches and a
half long, and was a male with small claspers. Captain
Swinburne's fish was about eleven feet in length, and
was captured off Ventnor in November 1845. The cuts
were all drawn from this specimen.

GRAY NOTIDANUS.

28 SCYMNI1XE.

PLAGIOSTOMI. SCYMNID^.

SQUALL

VALENTIN'S SEA-HOUND.

Scymnus lichia, MULLER und HENLE, Plagiost. 92.

SCYMNID.E. Family Characters. — Sharks having spout-holes and two
dorsals without spines : no anal fin, and no nictitating membrane. Five
stigmata, all of them before the pectorals. A spiral intestinal valve.

SCYMNUS. Generic Characters. — Head flat or laterally compressed. Spout-
holes far behind and rather above the eyes. All the teeth of the upper jaw
straight or vertical to the jaw, slender, hooked : the under teeth broader,
with an upright or horizontal cutting edge. Stigmata small, the last two
moderately approximated. No caudal pit.

In the sub-genus Scymnus the teeth are lancet-shaped on the mandible,
sharp on the sides, tumid on the front surface, and have their lancet-shaped
tips raised on an elevated base : the mesial mandibular tooth is not smaller
than its neighbours, and has the basis alike on both sides, with a notch at
the origin of the root. The rest of the mandibular teeth have an impress
on the inner side formed by the overlying root of the next tooth. Their
roots are bilobate, with a furrow. There is no prickle in the claspers.

THIS Shark occurs in Mr. Yarrell's list of new British
Fishes intended for his third edition, but without any
intimation of the time or place of its capture. As it
is a species which inhabits the Mediterranean and the
Bay of Biscay, and may be expected to enter the British
Channel occasionally at least, a notice of it is given for
the benefit of practical ichthyologists. The following
description is quoted from Miiller and Henle : —

" The nostrils are near the end of the snout, and have
a small three-sided lappet on their inner border, and the
hinder angle of the eye is over the corner of the mouth.
Mandibular teeth serrated, fifteen in number, with two
rows erected. The pectorals are round, without a hinder
corner ; the ventrals four-cornered and broader than the
pectorals. Between the pectorals and ventrals, and
rather nearer the pectorals, stands the small first dorsal,

VALENTIN'S SEA-HOUND. 29

rounded, and without a hinder angle. The second dorsal
is larger and four-cornered, and is situated immediately
behind the ventrals ; it is notched in its upper border, blunt
at its fore corner, and pointed behind. Caudal fin desti-
tute of an under lobe, three-cornered. Scales having
three or more points on a four-cornered base, with three
keels on the fore part. Colour violet-blackish or brown-
ish, uniform, but with some black clouds posteriorly."

LOCH LONG, NEAR THE ENTRANCE OF LOCH GOIL.

,

There floated Haco's banner trim,
Above Norweyan warriors grim,
Savage of heart, and large of limb ;
Threatening both continent and isle,
Bute, Arran, Cunningham, and Kyle.

SCOTT.

PETROMYZONID^E.

DERMOPTERI.

PETROM YZONID^.

TEETH OF Petromyzon Jura.

The Petromyzon Jura, figured in Mac Culloch's Wes-
tern Isles (vol. ii. pp. 186-7, t. 29, f. 1) is probably of this
genus. If the teeth are correctly represented, the fish
has no relation to Lampetra fluvialis (vide GRAY, Cat.
Fish, B. Mus. p. 139). It was found adhering to a
Gurnard on the coast of the island of Jura, one of the
Hebrides.

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HISTORY

BRITISH FISHES

WILLIAM YASEELL, F.L.S., V.P.Z.8.

VOL. III.— SUPPLEMENTARY.

LONDON:
JOHN VAN VOORST, PATERNOSTER ROW.

M.DCCC.LX.

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