SHANNY. 



261 



the water, and by the use of the pectoral fins creep into con- 

 venient holes, rarely more than one in each, and there, with 

 the head outward, they wait for a few hours, until the return 

 of the water restores them to liberty. If discovered or 

 alarmed in these chambers, they retire by a backward motion 

 to the bottom of the cavity. These circumstances show that 

 the Shanny is retentive of life ; in confirmation of which I 

 have known it continue lively after a confinement of thirty 

 hours in a dry box, notwithstanding which it soon expires in 

 fresh water." 1 ' 



Furnished with long and firm incisor teeth, the Shanny 

 is able to separate from the rocks, muscles, limpets, &c. on 

 which to feed. The spawn is deposited in summer, and soon 

 comes to life. 



The head is rounded over the eyes, descending from 

 thence rapidly to the nose ; between the eyes a deep groove ; 

 the hides scarlet, no appendages cither to the orbit or eye- 

 lids ; the nostril pierced in a depression, with a small fim- 

 briated membrane above it, a narrow oblong aperture on each 

 side in front of the edge of the orbit ; the mouth small, 

 angular, much the widest at the gape, the lips large, broad, 

 the posterior angle on each side free ; the teeth small, a 

 single row in each jaw, with occasionally a longer tooth pro- 

 jecting above the rest ; the checks tumid ; the gill-aperture 

 large, the membrane continuing unattached, and extending 

 under the throat to the other side. 



The number of fin-rays is as follows 



D. 31 : P. 13 : V. 2 : A. 19 : C. 11. 



The dorsal fin commences on a line over the union of 

 the operculum with the body, the first portion consisting of 

 twelve rays, the last of which is the shortest, the thirteenth 

 as long again as the twelfth, forming the interruption ; 

 eighteen others succeed, nearly equal in height, the last of 



