DUSKY SKULPIN. 179 



kinds of Skulpins afford good food, but they find no place 

 at British tables. 



The Dusky Skulpin is known on every part of the coasts 

 of the British Islands, as also in the North Sea and Mediter- 

 ranean. 



I have known this fish to measure nine inches in length, 

 but usually it is not so large. The general proportions as in 

 the Yellow Skulpin, except that the head in front of the eyes 

 is not so long. The most remarkable difference, however, is to 

 be found in the comparative length of the rays of the dorsal 

 fins, and in the colours, which, in the Dusky Skulpin, however 

 prone to vary, are never like those of the Yellow Skulpin, 

 either in tints or arrangement. Sometimes the prevailing colour 

 is olive green, sometimes brown, dark, or light copper, with 

 mottlings which occasionally assume the form of bars or bands 

 across the back; and an example has been seen from the deeper 

 water at the mouth of the British Channel, in which the 

 upper surface of the body was covered with beautiful ocellated 

 spots, the second dorsal having also a broad line of the pre- 

 vailing colour of the body. But in no instance has there been 

 observed a tendency to the resplendent blue which adorns the 

 sides, cheeks, and fins of the Yellow Skulpin. But the more 

 remarkable dissimilarity is found in the extent of the rays in 

 the fir-st dorsal fin, the first and longest of which does but 

 little exceed, if at all, those of the second dorsal. It is 

 common also for this first ray to be bound down on the fin, 

 as if incapable of becoming of longer growth. This, however, 

 may be the character of the female only, as is the undoubting 

 belief of some naturalists; and in justice to the subject, it 

 must be noticed, that instances occur in which individuals may 

 be supposed to be in the condition of passing from the partially 

 developed to the perfect state, or from that of the undeveloped 

 male, resembling a female, to the state in which the male 

 characters are fully represented. 



The earliest manifestation of this asserted development is 

 seen in a lengthening of the first ray of the first dorsal fin, 

 to the extent of a fifth part of its ordinary length, as measured 

 in the Dusky Skulpin. But in another example, which had 

 attained the length of seven inches and a fourth, this first ray 

 was so much elongated as to reach backward more than half 



