170 



MULLER'S TOPKNOT. 



Pleuronedes pundatus, BLOCK; f. 189. TURTON'S Linnaeus. 



FLEMING; Br. Animals, p. 196. 

 Rhombus pundatus, CUVIER. 



Pleuronedes hirtus, JENYNS; Manual, p. 462. 



Rhombus hirtus, YARRELL; Br. Fishes, vol. ii, p. 334. 



Rhombus pundatus, GUNTHER; Cat. Br. Museum, vol. iv, 



p. 413. 



PENNANT appears to have been the first to notice this fish, 



but he seems to have had but a slight knowledge of it, as in 



the engraving he has given, in the first octavo edition of his 



British Zoology, he bestowed upon it the name of Smear Dab, 



which in his text he had already assigned to a very different 



species. But on the other hand it must not be imputed to 



him, but to his engraver, that the eyes in his figure are directed 



towards the right. Since the time of Pennant, however, a 



considerable amount of confusion has mingled itself with the 



accounts which naturalists have given of the characters of this 



fish as compared with another closely allied to it, which has 



sprung more especially from the belief that the distinction 



between them is to be recognised by marks which assuredly 



are neither constant nor decisive. A principal one of these is 



said to be that the one or two first rays of the dorsal fin in 



the species known as Bloch's Topknot, next to be described, 



are lengthened into a separate filament; but I entertain no 



doubt that this supposed mark is only of casual occurrence, 



and may as well be met with in one species as the other; as it 



is not uncommon also in the Turbot, Brill, already referred to, 



and, as we shall presently see, in the Megrim or Scaldfish. It 



is somewhat remarkable, however, that I have not seen this 



elongation of the fir^t rays in any other species besides those 



oi the genus llhotnbus. 



