COUCH S WHITING. 



247 



SUBBRACH1AL 

 MALACOPTERYG11. 



GADW/E. 



COUCH'S WHITING. 

 Merlangus albus. 



Gadus albus, Risso, Ichth. p. 1 15. 



Merlangus poutassou, ,, Hist. vol. iii. p. 227. 



IN the month of May 1840 I received a communication 

 from Mr. Couch of Polperro to the following effect : " On 

 the 5th of this month I had the good fortune to procure a 

 new species of the Gadidee, new at least to Britain : it is 

 the species described by M. Risso in his Ichthyology of Nice, 

 page 115, and suspected by him not to be the Whiting of 

 the Northern ocean, from which it differs in several decisive 

 particulars." 



M. Risso makes but few observations upon this fish either 

 in his single volume on the Ichthyology of Nice, published 

 in 1810, or in his Natural History of the Productions of the 

 Environs of Nice, published in five volumes in 1826. He 

 says it inhabits the sea of Nice, and is taken at all seasons ; 

 that it spawns in the spring, and that its flesh is rather soft. 

 This quality of the flesh of the Whiting of the Mediterra- 

 nean was mentioned to me by Dr. Lush, the superintendent 



