32 



COMBER WPtASS. 



Jago, in Ray's Synopsis Piscium, pi. 2, f. 5. 



This fish must be distinguished from another Comber, 

 Serranus cahrilla, in our "History of British Fishes/' voh i, 

 p. 195. The only author besides Jago to which we can refer 

 with confidence concerning it is Pennant, who has given a 

 figure of an example he had obtained from Cornwall, and of 

 which he says: — "It was of a slender form, the back, fins, and 

 tail red, the belly yellow; the sides marked beneath the side 

 line with a smooth even stripe, from the gills to the tail, of a 

 silvery colour; the tail rounded at the end. The dorsal fin 

 had twenty spiny and eleven soft rays, pectoral fourteen, ventral 

 five, anal three spiny and soft, the caudal fourteen. 



Dr. Gunther supposes that this fish may be the Lahrus 

 Donovani of Cuvier, which is described as having "the height 

 of the body equal to the length of the head, and contained 

 thrice and three fourths in the total; length of the snout one 

 third of that of the head. Dorsal fin with twenty firm rays, 

 and ten or eleven soft; anal twelve rays, of which three are 

 firm." The colours are said by Valenciennes to be on the 

 upper parts and fins green, a silvery band along the sides; 

 head with some irregular blue lines. 



This description scarcely leaves the subject more clear than 

 before, but I will here introduce a fish to the naturalist, that 

 if not the Comber Wrass, at least must be regarded as different 

 from any other we have to describe as British. It was caught 

 in a crab-pot, and measured in length five inches and a half. 

 Head before the eyes lengthened and pointed, longer in pro- 

 portion than in the Ballan Wrass; gape wide; lips very fleshy; 

 upper jaw a little beyond the lower; teeth as in the Common 

 Wrass; eye large; back rising to the dorsal fin; body compressed. 



