70k 
 
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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,Pkoto 1 
 
 " /^" ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 London, Jdlra. Van. Voorst, Paternoster How, 1859. 
 
SECOND SUPPLEMENT 
 
 TO 
 
 THE FIRST EDITION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 H I S T 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 w T hich 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. 1017 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, 2 e 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 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 w r ere 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. 1211, 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 w r hich 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. 143+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, 2 me 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. 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. 
 
 END OF SECOND SUPPLEMENT 
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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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