RAY^S SEA BREAM. 135 



and Professor Reinliardt, in a paper read before the Royal 

 Society of Natural History and Mathematics of Denmark, 

 has ascertained the northern limits of this species on that 

 coast. 



From this enumeration of specimens and localities, it will 

 be evident that Cuvier, in his history of this fish, was de- 

 ceived in supposing it exclusively peculiar to the Mediterra- 

 nean, and that only a straggler occasionally wandered into 

 the ocean ; and, on the contrary, that Bloch and Lacepede 

 were perfectly justified in considering this fish a native of the 

 Northern Seas, as well as of the Mediterranean. 



The following description of a recent fish is from the MS. 

 of Mr. Couch : " The specimen was twenty-three inches in 

 length, and eight inches and a half in depth before the dorsal 

 fin ; the figure much compressed ; head small, sloping in 

 front ; snout short; angle of the mouth depressed ; under jaw 

 longest ; teeth slender, numerous, sharp, incurved, the inner 

 row of the lower jaw longest ; tongue fleshy ; eye large, 

 rather oval, not far from the mouth ; iris dark, pupil light ; 

 nostril single ; gill-cover with two plates, the membrane con- 

 cealed, seven rays. Measuring along the curve, the dorsal 

 fin begins seven and a half inches from the snout, having 

 three shorter rays like blunt spines, each longer than that 

 before it, the fourth ray longest ; the fin then becomes nar- 

 rower, and continues slender to within an inch of the root of 

 the tail; anal fin shaped like the dorsal, beginning farther 

 back, and ending opposite the former ; pectoral fin six inches 

 long, rather narrow, pointing obliquely upwards ; ventrals 

 triangular, with a long pointed scale in the axilla ; tail deeply 

 forked ; lateral line near the back obscure ; head, body, and 

 fins, except the pectorals and ventrals, covered with firmly 

 fixed scales, but a band across the forehead is without them, 

 the colour of which, and also of the back, is a very dark blue; 

 copper-coloured brown over and before the eye ; somewhat 



