io'6 The Irish Naturalist, October; 



NOTES. 



Rare Fishes in Irish Waters. ■ 



A specimen of the Belted Bonito [Pelamys sarda)- wa.s sent from Howth 

 to the Ministry of Fisheries on July 27th, 1923, by Mr. A. King, Fisheries 

 Officer. It had been taken the previous night in a herring net by the 

 motor fishing boat " St. Veronica " of Arklow. The specimen was a 

 female, 38 cm. in length, with ovaries well developed but not yet ripe. 

 The ovarian eggs measured .4 mm. in diameter. In the stomach were 

 some partially digested fish bones. P. sarda is not recorded by Day as 

 an Irish fish, though it has several times been taken on the coasts of Eng- 

 land and Scotland. Mr. A. R. Nichols, however, informs me that there 

 are three specimens in the National Museum taken respectively at Court- 

 macsherry, Co. Cork, in August 191 1, Carrigaloe, Co. Cork, in July, 191 3, 

 and Broadhaven, Co. Mayo, in July, 1915. Probably it has been taken 

 more often than these records suggest, but has been mistaken for an extra 

 large Mackerel, It is common in the Mediterranean and occurs on both 

 sides of the North Atlantic and on the east side of the South Atlantic. 

 It is said to reach a length of three feet, though most of the specimens 

 recorded from the British coasts have been between one and two feet in 

 length. The present specimen has been added to the Museum collection, 



A few days later a specimen of the Opah [Lamprys luna) was received 

 at the Ministry of Fisheries, having. been forwarded by Mr. P. Donovan, 

 of Wexford, who wrote that it swam right on to the beach at Rosslare and 

 was captured. Its action recalls the capture of the specimen from Lambay 

 recorded in the Irish Naturalist for 191 6, p. 32, which was said to have 

 struggled violently in shallow water, apparently determined to reach 

 dry land. When the specimen arrived in Dublin, decomposition had 

 already set in, but the brilliant orange-red colour of the fins and the 

 mauve reflections and silvery spots on the body still gave evidence of its 

 magnificent colouring when alive. It was a female, measuring 97.5 cm. 

 in length, and, excluding the dorsal fin, 50 cm. in height. The ovary was 

 spent but contained some residual crushed ova which when perfect would 

 have measured about 2 . 5 mm. in diameter. In the stomach were found 

 several cephalopod beaks. Miss A. L. Massy has been good enough to 

 examine these and considers that they belong to two species of squids, 

 one represented by a large pair of mandibles and the other by seven upper 

 and four lower mandibles. They cannot be referred to any of the species 

 commonly found in the Irish Sea, and were probably the remains of a 

 meal which the Opah had had before it reached our waters. 



The Opah appears to be an inhabitant of the Gulf Stream. There 

 are several records from the British and Irish coasts. Day mentions seven 

 Irish specimens as having been taken between 1835 and 1851, and there 

 are in the National Museum, besides the Lambay specimen, two casts of 

 fish from Galway and Wexford. It also visits the coasts of Norway almost 

 every year, evidently following the shoals of the squid Ommatostreptus 



