430 Dr. Knox's Notice of a Sword-Fish, 



expressions used by him, then, are preferable, " dorsal Jin inter- 

 rupted " and this is strictly true as to its projecting or lophiodermic 

 part. But we have seen that the anal fin is not entirely interrupted. 



Dr. Leach, at the conclusion of this memoir, makes an observa- 

 tion deserving the attention of the naturalist : — 



" Since the above was written, I have been informed by Mr. 

 Bullock, that some years since he saw in the Firth of Forth seve- 

 ral living specimens of a Xiphias playing in the water. I think 

 he saw seven or eight, and he was so near as to be enabled to ob- 

 serve the dorsal fin to be undivided : it is therefore highly probable 

 that the Xiphias Gladius may also be a native of our seas, or per- 

 haps be the other sex of this." 



By a reference to the paper of Dr. Leach, it will be found that 

 I have been able to make several additions and corrections to his 

 excellent memoir. 



It may not be irrelevant to remark here, that it might much 

 benefit natural history, were a few concise instructions for the pre- 

 servation of objects relating to that science, and more particularly 

 to zoology, drawn up, and circulated widely through the medium of 

 the daily and periodical press. 



Most uneducated persons still fancy that naturalists are mere 

 collectors of pebbles, shells, insects, and of the skins of animals ; 

 and accordingly, the persons who captured the Xiphias, with a de- 

 scription of which we have been favoured, imagined that they 

 should not in any way diminish the value of the specimen, by re- 

 moving the parts they imagined most likely to putrify. With the 

 best intentions, they seem to have proceeded on the principles laid 

 down in certain instructions, drawn up and circulated some time 

 time ago by a person who might naturally enough be supposed to 

 know something of zoology, but who, in fact, is at least half a cen- 

 tury behind all real zoologists of the present day. Proceeding 

 agreeably to these instructions, they had removed the heart and 

 brain, and most of the abdominal viscera ; in a word, all those 

 organs whose examination aiford so much valuable information to 

 the zoologist. But, really, zoology in all other parts of the world, 

 and in all other hands, is no longer the science of ill-stufi^ed birds 

 and Avorse- stuffed quadrupeds ; and this fact, though yet but little 

 understood in this country, must soon make its way. — Ed. 



