139 



BLUNT-HEADED HALEBEAK. 



Hemiramphus obtusus, Zoologist, January, 1848. 



« " List of British Animals in the 



British Museum, 1851. 



In the summer of the year 1841, I discovered, swimming in 

 a pool of the rocks, where they had been left by the tide, 

 several of the little fishes presently to be described, and of 

 which we give a figure; and an account of these examples was 

 read before the Linnsean Society in the following year. I have 

 not seen any fishes like them since the time here mentioned; 

 but in the year 1846, some of a similar kind were obtained 

 from a pool in the INIount's Bay, near Penzance by my late 

 son Richard Q. Couch; and an account was given of them, with 

 a figure of my own specimens, in the "Zoologist," as above 

 referred to. My impression at the time was, that they were 

 the young condition of some unknown species; but I have not 

 been able with any probability to assign them to any kind of 

 fish known to naturalists; and the account is here given in the 

 hope that future observation will throw some further light on 

 the subject. 



The length of my own specimens was half an inch; the 

 head proportionally large, wide across; body slender; eye large, 

 and the snout in front of it short and abrupt; upper jaw arched; 

 under jaw stout, projecting to a considerable extent, but in some 

 specimens more than others; the point declining, and the sides 

 not appearing to be formed of parallel rami of the jaw, but 

 rather of a cartilaginous substance; vent placed posteriorly; body 

 equal from the head to this point, but tapering thence to the 

 tail; lateral line, so far as it could be distinguished, straight; 

 dorsal and anal fins single, posterior, opposite each other; the 

 latter beginning close behind the vent, and both reaching nearly 



