ArPKNBTX. 



425 



SHORT-FINNED TUNNY. 



Tliynnus hrachyptcrus, Cuvier. 



" " GuxTHER; Catalogue Br. Museum, 



vol. ii, p. 863. 



Pelamys vera, Rondeletius; p. 245; but he supposes 



it an early condition of the Tunny; 

 and it is to be observed that it is 

 not recognised by Dr. Gulia, in his 

 "Tentamen, or Re])ortorio of the 

 Fishes of Malta," at least as being 

 distinct from the Tliynnus Brevi- 

 pinnis of the same author. 



This fish is a native of the Mediterranean, where perhaps it 

 is equally common with the Tunny, with which it appears to 

 have been confounded until distinguished by the discriminating 

 examination of Baron Cuvier. But it appears to be less a 

 wanderer into the ocean than that fish, and there is no record 

 of its havinsf been caus^ht in the British seas until the summer 

 of the present year, 1865; Mdicn an example was discovered 

 among the numbers of small Mackarel taken near Mevagissey, 

 in Cornwall, in the drift-nets, and sent to me by Mr. jNIatthias 

 Dunn, an intelligent fisherman of that place. This first example 

 was obtained on the 18th. of August, and it is worthy of notice 

 that within a week afterwards a specimen was taken in the 

 same manner by a fisherman of Pol per lo; and in the first week 

 in September three other examples were sent to me from 

 Mevagissey; thus amounting to five examples in the course of 

 a month Avithin a limited extent of our south coast; which 

 circumstance appears to shew that they have been bred at no 

 great distance from our shores. The size of these examples also 

 goes f\ir to prove the same; fact, as the first measured only six 

 inches from the snout to the fork of the tail, and tlie three 

 last had only reached the length of eight inches. Our figure 

 VOL. IV. 3 1 



