116 MACTCAREL MIDGE. 



with, each other for the prize, and shaking their heads to 

 prepare it for being swallowed. Like the Recklings when in 

 the water the ciliated membrane is kept in constant and rapid 

 motion, and it is only when thus situated that the position of 

 the barbs can be well observed. 



This fish must be very prolific, if we may judge by the 

 multitudes which sometimes appear, and of which we have reason 

 to believe that vast numbers fall a prey to the more ravenous 

 fishes. They have even been found in the stomach of the 

 apparently harmless Pilchard; but the time of shedding the 

 roe has not been noticed. When they shew themselves with 

 us they appear to be of full growth, and they rarely exceed 

 the length of an inch and one fourth, the general proportion 

 of the body, as compared with the Rocklings, being like that 

 of the Whiting, excluding the fins, when laid by the side of 

 the Common Ling. The head obtuse, compressed, upper jaw 

 longest, with four projecting barbies; under jaw with one barbie; 

 teeth in both, and in the palate. Eye large and bright; 

 behind the head a chink holding a fringed membrane. Dorsal 

 and anal fins single, reaching to near the tail; pectoral and 

 ventral fins rather large for the size of the fish; scales easily 

 rubbed off. Colour on the back bluish green, sometimes 

 blackish ; belly and fins brilliant white or silvery. 



It scarcely appears necessary to give a separate notice of a 

 fish which was first described by Montagu, and termed by him 

 Gadus aryenteolus the Silvery Gade, but which he seems to 

 have confounded with the species we have last described, since 

 he represents it as occasionally common on the western coast 

 of England, where, since the distinction has been made, it has 

 been again recognised. The important mark of difference 

 between the Mackarel Midge and Montagu's Silvery Gade is, 

 that the latter possesses only two barbs in the upper jaw; but 

 it appears also to attain a larger size, since Montagu's specimens 

 were two inches in length, and Dr. Gunther mentions examples 

 obtained from Greenland which measured three inches. The 

 proportions of the head and body are described as the same in 

 both, but the number of rays in the fins are said to be different; 

 those of Couchia glauca being in the dorsal forty-four, anal 

 thirty-eight, ventral three; but in Montagu's Silvery Gade 

 Couchia argentata of Dr. Gunther's Catalogue of the British 



