12 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



Although I entertain no doubt that the fish before us is 

 the Poinpilus of older writers, the Black-fish of Jago and 

 Borlase, the Perca nigra of Gmelin, the Centrolophus pompilns 

 of Cuvier and Valenciennes, it shows in its proportions some 

 differences from the current descriptions and figures, which 

 it may be as well to note. 



The proportion of the length of the head to the total is 

 given by Giinther, Day, 1 and Jordan and Everman," as one 

 in five ; here it is rather less than one in five and a half. 

 The length of the pectoral fin is only half that of the head, 

 while Day gives the proportion as two-thirds to one, and in 

 his figure it is as much as three-fourths to one. The caudal 

 is also shorter and smaller than in the figures given by Cuvier 

 and Valenciennes, Day, and Jordan and Everman ; in the 

 last-mentioned figure, for instance, the length of the fin is 

 nearly one-fourth of the total, while in our specimen it is 

 only one-sixth. The rays of the dorsal and anal fins are 

 also represented in Day's, as well as in Cuvier and Valenciennes' 

 figure, as being proportionally much longer than in the 

 present case. 



The genus Centrolophns of Lacepede belongs to the 

 family Stromateidas, and of its species only two occur in 

 British waters, namely, C. niger (Gmelin), and C. Britannicus 

 (Giinther). The habitat of the former, or Blackfish, the subject 

 of the present notice, is given by Giinther as " Mediterranean, 

 coasts of France, and south coasts of England." It has also 

 occurred in Ireland, and Jordan and Everman mention one 

 specimen as having been obtained at Dennis, Massachusetts. 

 As a British fish it is undoubtedly very rare, and I know only 

 of one previous record of its occurrence in Scotland, namely, 

 a brief notice by the late Rev. Dr. Gordon of Birnie, in ihe 

 "Zoologist' 1 for 1852, p. 3459. Here, in a paper on the 

 ' Fishes of the Moray Firth and in the Fresh Waters of the 

 Province of Moray,' he notes : 



' The Black Fish, Centrolophns Poinpilus. A single speci- 



1 "British Fishes," vol. i. p. in, pi. xl, fig. 2. 



-' " Fishes of Middle and North America," vol. i., Washington, 1896, p. 963 ; 

 vol. iv., 1900, pi. cxlix., fig. 403. The general form of the fish, as portrayed in 

 this figure, is'so different from that shown in other figures, as well as in the speci- 

 men here described, that the question arises in one's mind, Has it been taken 

 from an individual of the same species ? 



