178 NATURAL HISTORY [Fishes. 



may sooner be moved than it pulled away. This part, I 

 imagine, acts much in the same manner as the circular piece 

 of wet leather, which children use to run a string through the 

 centre of, and clapping it on a stone, by the action of the air 

 it is held with great force, so as to lift a very large stone, and 

 sustain it as long as the leather continues moist, and the out- 

 ward air is excluded by its closely embracing the solid body. 



Species 2. — The Sea-Stiail. 



Liparis nostras Dunelm. et Eborac. Sea-Snail, Wil. Icth. App. 17. Rati Sj/n, 

 Pise. 74. Cyclopterus Liparis, l,in, Sys. 414. Brit. Zool. 105. Brit. 

 Zool. Jllus. 28, tab. ^9,fig. 3, 4. 



The Sea-Snail is found under the stones round the shores 

 of many places of Orkney, but no place more frequent than 

 that at the point of the Ness of Stromness, where they may 

 be picked up in dozens. 



The colour is a fine pale brown, stripped with lines of a dar- 

 ker brown, which run in many directions, forming a vast vari- 

 ety of labyrinthiform figures on its sides and back ; but these 

 are only seen immediately on its being taken out of the wa- 

 ter ; in half an hour they all vanish, and with them the beau- 

 ty of the fish, owing to the quick decay of its melting tex- 

 ture. 



The head is large ; no teeth ; the pectoral fins unite under 

 the throat, and under them is a sucker, something similar to, 



