74 CORYPH^NID.E. 



the stomach all round ; the whole resembling a mass of cellular tissue filled with 

 small Flukes {FasciolcE) or other parasitic worms. The liver was rather small. 

 The spleen, external to the mass of viscera, and placed below the cteca, was small, 

 and, as usual, dark atro-purpureous. The milt was soft, large, elongated, and 

 milky-white. The intestine is extremely fragile, large but short, and wholly 

 adnate to the gland-like mass of ca-ca ; making two bends or one complete volu- 

 tion in its course. There is no air-bladder. In a female individual, examined 

 in July, no difference was found, except in the presence of eggs or roe in place 

 of milt. 



The vertebrae are very short, and thirty-three in number ; which is two more 

 than in two other Madeiran species (C. hippuriis, L. and C. Nortoniana, nob.), 

 the excess being in the caudal vertebrae. They are united to each other on the 

 upper side by Httle longitudinal crests, which incline forwards. The abdominal 

 vertebrEe vary from thirteen to fourteen ; and are all, except the first, furnished 

 beneath with short irregular, unequal, descending apophi/ses, not uniting into 

 rings or arches. The lower prolonged spiny apophi/ses of the caudal vertebrce 

 are given off from the points of apophysal arches, the branches of which originate 

 just before (as those of the upper side the vertebral column do just behind) the 

 constricted middle point of each vertebra. The first of these apophi/ses is ensiform, 

 and elevated on a kind of stalk. 



The vertebrae and bones in this and other Coryphcence are brown and flesh- 

 coloured, and of a somewhat coarse or carious texture ; very different from those 

 of the generality of fishes, and more like those of young quadrupeds. 



Tills is entirely a surface fish at the time of its appearance on these 

 shores. Fishing off Magdalena, a village five leagues to the west of 

 Funchal, about a league and half from shore, I have several times on 

 calm days in August and September, fallen in with shoals of them, 

 generally accompanying floating planks or timber covered with Barnacles 

 {Pentelasmis lavis. Leach) ; in the neighbourhood of which Avere also 

 often many individuals of Pompilus Bennettii, nob., and of Naucrates 

 ductor, Risso ; whilst on the plank itself was sometimes resting a fine 

 Turtle (La Caouane, Cuv., Testudo Caretta, Gm.), haunted with its 

 usual parasite, Grapsus testudinum, Roux. The Douradas bite eagerly 

 at a hook baited with a piece of Mackerel, splashed and played about the 

 surface of the water with a rod : and ten or fifteen are in half as many 

 minutes generally captured ; upon which the rest make oflT. They are 

 remarkably bold, strong, and vigorous, crowding and rushing after the 

 bait, and leaping sometimes quite out of the water ; and when first pulled 

 into the boat, they skip about incessantly from one end of it to the 

 other in the most astonishingly active manner for a few minutes ; and 

 then, with a sudden gush of blood from the gills and mouth, die all at once. 

 In the water, or whilst yet alive, some of them are of the most pure daz- 

 zling white, like burnished silver, with merely a light watery azure tinge 

 along the back : much resembling Lichia glaycos upon its first capture, 

 but still whiter ; and in such, no specks or yellow wash appear. After 

 death, the blue of the back becomes darker, and spreads somewhat lower 

 down : and in some of these examples there came out presently a row of 



