^26 



SHANNY. 



MULLIGRANOC. SMOOTH BLEA'NY. 



Pliolis, JoNSTON; Table 17, f. 4. 



Alaucla non cristata, Willotjghby ; p. 133. 



Blennius fliolis, Linnaeus. Cuvier. Bloch; pi. 71, f. 2. 



" " DOXOVAN; pi. 71. 



Blennie pholis, Lacepede. Eisso. 



Pliolis IcBvis, Fleming ; Br. Animals, p. 207. 



Blennius pliolis, Jenyns; Manual, p. 382. 



" " Yarrell; British Fishes, vol. i, p. 260. 



" Guntiier; Cat. Br. M., vol. iii, p. 226. 



The Shanny is well known in the Mediterranean, and is 

 common along the borders of the British Channel; but it 

 becomes more scarce on the east coasts of the kingdom, and is 

 rarely found in the north of Scotland. Nilsson also says it is 

 scarce on the south-west coast of Norway. It is nowhere met 

 with at a considerable depth of water; but its haunts for the 

 most part are in rocky places from which the tide retires to 

 a small distance; and there it hides itself under a stone in a 

 moist situation where weeds abound; or, more frequently, as 

 the tide goes out, it creeps into a hole or chink in the rock, 

 where it remains for an hour or two until released by the rising 

 again of the sea. Its head in this situation is always outward, 

 as this position affords it the opportunity of discerning the 

 approach of an enemy; on the discovery of which it withdraws 

 itself from sight with a backward motion to a deeper part of 

 its retreat, by the help of its pectoral and ventral fins. 



It is through an instinctive feeling of pleasure as well as of 

 safety that this fish will quit the water for a time; and it is 

 scarcely to be doubted that by this means also it secures a 

 renewal of health and vigour, for when its resort is in a pool 

 of the rocks from which the sea cannot retire, it climbs to some 



