44 GREATER WEEVER. 



understanding that they belonged to two separate, although 

 kindred species; both of which are now recognised as being 

 found in the Mediterranean, although, until of late, they had 

 since his time been confounded together. Conscious of the 

 presence of the long and piercing spines with which the 

 superior portion of their gill-covers are armed, they scarcely 

 wait to see the near approach of danger. The apprehension 

 of it is enough to call them into action ; and with a dread 

 of what may follow, if we may credit the poet Oppian, the 

 fishes which happen to be near give way, and suffer them to 

 march along without attempting to obtrude upon their course: 



"Weevers, whose march tlie timorous shoals obey, 

 Divide their ranks, and humbly give the way." 



U. 2 



Their usual haunts are near the bottom on sandy ground, 

 commonly at no great distance from the land; but I have 

 known this fish taken in a floating net over thirty-five fathoms 

 of water, and when several have been thus caught, it has 

 always been in the early morning cast of the nets, as if they 

 thus mounted aloft only in the darkness of the night. A fish- 

 erman expressed to me his belief that he had even seen this 

 fish spring above the surface. Its more familiar habit, however, 

 appears to be to conceal itself in the sand, where its variegated 

 colour on all the parts exposed must prevent it from being 

 readily discovered. A particular organization of the blood- 

 vessels of the tail appears to provide for the development of 

 organic sensibility in that organ, for the purpose of enabling 

 the fish to excavate a place and cover itself over; as I have 

 noticed also in some other fishes that are possessed of a similar 

 faculty of hiding themselves, of which the Launce and generally 

 the flat-fishes ( PlearonectidceJ are instances. In this position, 

 the head only of the Weever appears above the sand, but the 

 fish is ready to spring up on the slightest notice, and to 

 move away with great celerity. In this situation of concealment 

 it may chance to be left uncovered by the ebbing tide; but 

 it is highly retentive of life, even when caught with a net or 

 line, and therefore it suffers nothing by being left thus exposed; 

 and I have been informed of an instance where a dog, by 



