of the fish in every particular except one: he mentions the existence of several free spines in front of the dorsal ; this specimen most certainly had none. Possibly this may be a sexual distinction.
The other rare fish is the "Wreck-fish" (Couch's Polyprion, P. cernium, called by Couch the "Stone Basse"), which was caught in Mount's Bay on the 24th August, and kindly sent to me by Mr. A.O. Mitchell, of Chymorvah (the friend who sent me the sword-fish). Its dimensions were as follows:—Over all twenty inches ; eye to fork, twelve inches ; depth six inches and five- eighths; weight, six pounds.* It will be seen from these measure- ments that this specimen was small. It agrees with Yarrell's description, and also with Couch's, except that I am certain that at the time I examined it — about eight hours after its capture — it had on its venlrals a first ray, spinous, but with no part of the spine free, and on the anals the three first rays spinous, but with the spines all similarly concealed by the membrane of the fin. Since then the skin of the fish has been dried in the process of preservation, and these rays, owing to the shrinkage of the fin membrane, all now appear as free. Its mouth was a perfect study ; it was filled with beds of very small teeth, in, literally, every place on which a fish can carry teeth. They were not only in the jaws but on the vomer, the palaline bones, on the intermaxillaries, on the pharynx, and on the arches of the gills. On these latter, in addition to the small teeth, there were on each of the upper arches a regular row of spinous teeth, or spines, of about three-eighths of an inch long ; on the. second arch these became stumpy teeth, and on the third little knobs. The scale-rayed processes on the soft-rayed end of the dorsal, and on the venlrals and anals, were very apparent.
I took also one specimen of Yarrell's blenny, the first which I recollect having seen.
In crustaceans (stalk-eyed, I do not know much about the others) I did well, — I have already mentioned to you that I took Wrinkled Swimming Crabs of very small size,— Long-armed Munida, Andrews' Galathea, Long-legged Spider Crab, Common Spider Crab (of small size, but covered with sea-weed and corallines), and Long-homed Porcelain Crab. On this latter I made a curious observation. The first I had was taken in the ordinary way in a "pill" (or pool of
On September 7th I received another specimen of this fish, within six hours of
its capture on a hook and line. The spinous rays on the ventral and anal fins
were all free.
