VAAGMAEK. 211 



A recent notice of the Vaagmaer, or Vaogmserc, as it is 

 there called, appeared in the Instilul, or, Journal General 

 des Societes et Travaux ScientifiquesJ* a French periodical 

 publication devoted to giving reports of the proceedings of 

 Societies, of which the following is a free translation : 



" Professor Reinhardt communicated to the Royal Society 

 of Natural History and Mathematics of Denmark a con- 

 tinuation of his Ichthyological memoirs. It contained de- 

 scriptions of two genera which up to the present time have 

 not been perfectly understood : the Macrourys (Berglax), 

 and the Vogmarus (Vaogmeere), the species of which are 

 found in the Polar Seas, as well as in the Mediterranean. 



" The Ichthyologists of the North, it is stated, have in- 

 accurately described the Vogmarus Islandicus : their speci- 

 mens were mutilated, or badly preserved. A specimen, 

 almost entire, was thrown ashore during last year on the 

 coast of Skagen, which is now in the zoological collection 

 of the university : another was caught at the Feroe Islands, 

 and is preserved in the Royal Museum. These specimens 

 have been carefully examined, and prove that the Vaogmsere 

 does not belong, as Linnaeus believed, to the apodal fishes, 

 but to the thoracic ; although neither of these two spe- 

 cimens are sufficiently perfect to admit measurement of the 

 fin-rays." 



This northern species differs from those of the Medi- 

 terranean. 



In Dr. Fleming's paper above referred to, one specimen 

 caught alive at Sanda, in Orkney, is thus described : 

 " Length three feet ; body excessively compressed, particu- 

 larly towards the back, where it does not exceed a table- 

 knife in thickness ; breadth nearly five inches, tapering to 

 the tail. Colour silvery, with minute scales ; the dorsal 

 fin of an orange colour, occupying the whole ridge from the 



* Paris, tome ii. 1834, p. 158 and 193. 



p 2 



