ACANTHOPTERYGII. 297 



It is said on good authority, that the maigre still bears at 

 Rome the name of umbrina, as in the sixteenth century. M. 

 Cuvier, however, is certain that it partakes it with the corb, 

 which he has bought there under that name, though in the 

 time of Salvianus, it was named corvo de for tier a. Perhaps 

 this transposition of name existed already in the time of 

 Willughby, and has occasioned his uncertainty respecting 

 these two fishes. It appears that in the Mediterranean, it is 

 more especially along the southern coasts that the maigre is 

 propagated. 



In proportion as we proceed northwards, the maigre be- 

 comes more rare. Pennant says nothing respecting it in his 

 British Zoology. The fishermen of Fecamp, who sold to the 

 Baron, in 1798, the first which he ever saw, were not at all 

 acquainted with it. It was equally unknown in 180o to the 

 fishermen of Dieppe, who imposed upon it the name ofaigle, 

 but since then they have seen it from time to time. Two of 

 them were caught there in the month of September, 1813, and 

 one in 1822, which was presented to the cabinet du Roi, 

 by M. Amedee Jaubert. In 1828, in the month of November, 

 one of them was caught, which had engaged itself in the 

 sluices of Dunkirk. 



When these fishes swim in a troop they send forth a bel- 

 lowing louder than that of the gurnards, and it has occurred 

 that the fishermen, guided by their noise alone, have taken 

 twenty maigres at a single throw of the net. 



The fishermen assure us that the noise of the maigres is 

 sufficiently great to be heard under twenty fathom of water, 

 and they are careful from time to time to place their ear over 

 the edges of the boat, that they may be directed by this noise, 

 or this song as they are in the habit of calling it. But they 

 vary much respecting its nature. Some say that it is a dull 

 humming sound, others that it is rather a sharp hissing. In 

 the environs of Rochelle, they have given it a peculiar term, 



