294 OADID.E. 



tion of a specimen taken in Cornwall. The description is 

 already given by Dr. Fleming. Dr. Johnston has also fur- 

 nished me with a coloured drawing, a penciled sketch, and a 

 description. These compared together, these again compared 

 with the double representations in the last two octavo editions 

 of Pennant's British Zoology, and each with the figure of 

 Jago's fish in Ray's Synopsis, will, I think, leave little doubt 

 that all are intended to represent the same fish. 



Sir William Jardine has reminded me that a tolerable 

 figure of this fish occurs in M tiller's Zoologia Danica, under 

 the name of Bhnnius raninus. The figure here given is 

 from Dr. ParnelFs engraving in his History of the Fishes of 

 the Frith of Forth. 



Dr. Johnston's description is as follows : 



" The comparison implied in the name Tadpole Fish is 

 very expressive of its general form and colour ; for when 

 alive it was entirely black, and the anterior parts are large 

 and tumid, while the hinder are much compressed. The 

 extreme length of our Berwickshire specimen was eleven 

 inches ; and its greatest circumference, which is immediately 

 before the pectoral fins, was seven inches, whence it tapered 

 rapidly to the tail. The head is very large, obtuse, and 

 flattened on the crown, where there is a slight depression 

 between the eyes, which arc an inch distant from each other, 

 lateral, prominent, round, and black. The mouth is wide ; 

 and under the chin there is a small conical barb or feeler : 

 the lips are rounded and white ; the inferior jaw armed with 

 two close rows of sharp teeth, and the upper, which is move- 

 able, with similar teeth, but more numerous, and not dis- 

 tinctly rowed. On the palate, behind the jaw, there is a 

 semilunar cartilaginous prominence or tubercle roughened 

 with small teeth ; and the wide entrance into the oesophagus 

 is guarded with four similar tubercles, but of a roundish 

 figure, two above, and two smaller below. The branchial 



