BERYX SPLENDENS. 49 



In demonstration of the difficulty which has hitherto attended the proper 

 systematic collocation of these fishes, it may be mentioned, that whilst 

 the greater number of the genera, and one species of Trachiclit/it/s, have 

 been enumerated by MM. Cuvier and Valenciennes amongst Percida ; 

 Monocentris, and a second species of Trachichthys [Hoplostethus Medi- 

 terraneus, Cuv. and Val.), are included in the family of the Triglida. 



No fishes are perhaps more characteristic of Madeiran ichthyology 

 than the two common species which belong to the typical and central 

 genus, Beryx, of this group. Remarkable and striking in appearance, 

 from their enormous opal eyes, and brilliant red or rosy tints, and abun- 

 dant principally in the spring and summer, though scarcely absent from 

 the iiiarket long at any season, they fail not early to attract the notice of 

 the most incurious visitor. The two sorts diflfer not in season, taste, or 

 quality. They are generally esteemed good table-fishes ; their flesh being 

 white, moderately firm, flaky, and well-tasted, though possessing no 

 peculiar delicacy of flavour. They are in highest season in the autumn : 

 their usual size is from twelve to eighteen inches long, weighing from two 

 to five pounds. They are captured only at enormous depths ; and though 

 I have been unsuccessful hitherto in obtaining one of either sort in spawn, 

 yet I have reason to believe, from certain observations, that their breeding- 

 season is the autumn. 



It is remarkable that fishes so common in a locality so little remote from 

 Europe should not earlier have engaged the ichthyologist's attention. 

 The first notice of one of the species {B. decadactyliis^ is afforded by the 

 illustrious Cuvier ; whose acquaintance with it was, it appears, derived from 

 a dried example taken from the Cabinet of Lisbon, to which it may with 

 probability be supposed to have been conveyed from Madeira -MM. Cu- 

 vier and Valenciennes remark so lately as the year 1829, in the third vo- 

 lume of their Histoire, regarding this example, " II n'existe a notre dis- 

 position aucune note sur son origine ; nous ne connaissons ni ses habitudes 

 ni les parages qu'il habite, et nous ne pouvons les esperer que de quelquc 

 navigateur assez heureux pour le rencontrer. Son anatomie sera aussi un 

 objet interessant de recherche." Cuv. et Val. iii. 226. 



When, in the years 1833 and 1836, I published B. splendens in the 

 Proceedings of the Zoological Society, and Cambridge Philosophical Trans- 

 actions, I had not discovered the existence of another species in these seas : 

 but by a singular coincidence, which can be scarcely called unfortunate, 

 since it led subsequently to afresh discovery, the individual selected by Miss 

 Young for a representation in the Cambridge Transactions of B. splendens, 

 happened to be one of a sort at that time unknown to me, but which has 

 subsequently proved scarcely less common than the other, and identical 

 with B. decadactylus of Cuvier. In colouring and general aspect there is 

 indeed a very strong resemblance between the two Madeiran species ; and 



