237 



COMMON SEA BREAM. 



BREAN. 



Sparus aurata, Donovan; pi. 89. 



Spare Marseillois, Risso. 



Pagellus centroduntm, CuviEii. Guntiier's Catalogue Br. 



Museum, vol. i., p. 476. 

 " " Yarrell's Br. Fishes, vol. i., p. 123. 



Sparus centrodontus, Jenyns; Manual, p. 356. 



In regard to this fish, which with us is the most abundant 

 of its family, an extraordinary amount of confusion has existed; 

 which has been produced by mistaking it for some species that 

 had been described in a general way by foreign writers, but 

 which are of rare occurrence in Britain; so that our native 

 writers had not possessed the opportunity of actually comparing 

 the one with the other. Willoughby and his friend John Ray 

 appear to have led the way in this mistake; and being without 

 a figure, and more intent on observing the fishes of the Medi- 

 terranean than those of Britain, they ajjpear to have satisfied 

 themselves with the belief that this species, which they certainly 

 must have been acquainted with, was the same with the Gilt- 

 head, or Sparus aurata; which latter again they were scarcely 

 able to distinguish from the Pagrus; and accordingly Willoughby 

 calls his Pagrus by the English name — a Sea Bream; which 

 Ray, in his "Synopsis Piscium," more definitely designates the 

 Sea Bream; although the presence of the black spot on the 

 side of the one and its absence from the others, should have 

 been sufficient to have assured him of the difference between 

 them. 



It does not appear that Linnaeus was acquainted with the 

 present species; and Pennant, to a characteristic likeness of the 



