Mr. W. Thompson on the Fauna of Ireland. 9 



as an individual washed oiF the deck of a vessel, or one that had 

 escaped from the cord which was intended to secure it, when (as is a 

 common custom on board ship) it may have been committed to the 

 sea for the benefit of a swim. However, as both the specimens which 

 have been procured on the Irish coast are of the same species, and 

 one which according to Dumeril and Bibron is very common in the 

 Mediterranean, and of occasional occurrence in the Atlantic Ocean, 

 they may by the natural influence of winds and waves have been car- 

 ried to our shores. This remark would from the circumstance of its 

 frequenting the same seas likewise apply to the much rarer species, 

 the Leathery Turtle, Sphargis coriacea, which has been taken on the 

 English coast. The Hawks-bill Turtle, Chelonia imbricata, now in- 

 cluded in the British Fauna, may more probably than the other two 

 species, have been washed off the decks of vessels or outlived their 

 wreck, its native abode being so far remote from the British seas as 

 the West Indies and the Indian Ocean*. 



Pisces. 

 Scomber Thtnnus, Linn. Tunny. Dr. Jacob (Professor of Ana- 

 tomy in the Royal College of Surgeons) of Dublin, informs me, that 

 during the herring season about twelve years ago he purchased a 

 specimen of this fish about 2 feet in length, (and evidently a recent 

 capture,) from a fisherman who supplied him with the rare species he 

 procured, and whose ordinary fishing-ground was off Dublin Bay, 

 within forty miles of the metropolis. 



GoBius UNipUNCTATus, Pamell. One- spotted Goby. ' Wem. 

 Mem.' vol. vii. p. 83, pi. 29. I have obtained this on the north-east 

 coast of Ireland ; and in Mr. R. Ball's collection there is a specimen, 

 3 inches in length, which was procured at Glendore (county Cork) 

 by Mr. Geo. J. AUman. Although well-marked individuals of G. 

 unipunctatus may appear specifically different from G. gracilis and 

 G. minutus, yet from having remarked some specimens intermediate 

 in character between the two first mentioned, I am led to doubt 

 whether in these days of refinement the old Gobius minutus has not 

 been multiplied into too many species. 



Cyclopterus goronatus, Couch. Coronated Lump-fish. ' Cornish 

 Fauna/ p. 47. ' Annals Niit. Hist.' vol. ii. p. 382. Of this fish, 

 considered by Mr. Couch distinct from the C. lumpus, I procured 

 two specimens, rather exceeding 10 Unes in length, by dredging in 



* All the localities noted by Dumeril and Bibron, except Havanna, are 

 within, or bordering on the Indian Ocean. — Erpetologie Generale, tome ii, 

 p. 551. 



