OPAH. 195 



examples were recorded as having been taken in different 

 parts of the British Islands ; four of them in the north, and 

 one at Brixham in 1824. Since that time three others have 

 been obtained, one of which is now preserved in the British 

 Museum, and from that example the representation given 

 was drawn and engraved. A specimen taken in the Clyde 

 some years since is now preserved in the Andersonian Mu- 

 seum at Glasgow. It has also appeared still farther north, 

 since M. Nilsson includes it in his Prodromus of the Fishes 

 of Scandinavia, M. Kroyer includes it in his Fishes of Den- 

 mark, and Professor Reinhardt has recorded that within the 

 last thirty years three examples have been taken on the coast 

 of Denmark ; and, what is remarkable, they were all caught 

 very near the same spot. 



Since the publication of the previous account, Mr. Couch, 

 in the Cornish Fauna, mentions having received information 

 that one specimen of the Opah had been taken in Cornwall. 

 In August 1835, a specimen was caught in the weir nets in 

 the bay of Llandudu, near Conway. In July 1839, a speci- 

 men three feet long was caught at Hunstanton, on the Nor- 

 folk coast, which was sent up to London to Mr. John Lead- 

 beater, by whom it was well preserved for the Wisbeach 

 Museum. Towards the end of the year 1838, a fine speci- 

 men was caught on that part of the Dogger Bank nearest to 

 Burlington, in Yorkshire, and passed into the possession of 

 Mr. Baker, a fishmonger of York, as recorded in the Natu- 

 ralist. Dr. Parnell, in his Essay on the Fishes of the Firth 

 of Forth, mentions that the last of several that have been 

 found there was washed ashore in July 1835, on some rocks 

 to the west of North Queensferry ; its length was five feet, 

 weighing, as nearly as the men could compute, eleven stone. 

 The head was preserved : the body was cut up, taken away, 

 and eaten by the fishermen, who stated that the flesh was red, 

 remarkably good, equal to that of Salmon, and very much of 



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