SCORPENA SCROFA, 109 



tomics), and perhaps the Carneiro, -will be brought to the table in greatest 

 perfection after being kept some hours, when the heat or season will permit.* 

 For the Carneiro in particular, Rondelet further recommends boiling 

 as the best mode of preparation for the table. Except when small, it is 

 indeed a fish of too fibrous, hard, and dry a muscle for frying or broil- 

 ing. The flesh is delicately white and flaky ; but still, prepared in any 

 way, it is in general an inferior, tough, insipid kind of fish. 



The Carneiro is in shape thick, short, and clumsy ; with the head and shoulders 

 enormously and disproportionately large and thick, but with the body small com- 

 paratively, and compressed. The back is moderately arched : the belly either is 

 quite straight from the throat to the commencement of the anal fin, or fre- 

 quently, as when gorged with food, and especially in female fishes when in spawn, 

 swollen and prominent ; the ventral line ascending rather steeply or rapidly from 

 the ventral fins to the root of the caudal fin. The greatest depth is at the 

 shoulders, and equals from one fourth to nearly one third of the whole length. 

 The greatest thickness at the same part is about one fifth of the whole length, not 

 equalling the depth. 



Head very large and clumsy, of a heavy massive, rounded, or subcubic form, 

 being nearly as thick as deep, and its length exceeding the greatest depth of the 

 body : its upper outline very uneven and irregular ; the eyes, which are approxi- 

 mate, projecting high above it in a singular manner : the whole armed with pro- 

 minent strong spines and bony ridges, and of a deformed and monstrous aspect. 

 Muzzle rather short, thick, and oljtuse, extending twice the diameter of the eye 

 before it, to the tip of the lower jaw, when the mouth is closed : with a trans- 

 verse hollow immediately before the eyes, and a prominent strong hump or 

 protuberance forwarder. The nostrils are two plain, round, or oval orifices, of 

 which the anterior is nearly half way from the eye to the tip of the muzzle ; the 

 hinder close before the eye. 



The mouth and gape are, like the branchial opening, very large ; yet the gape 

 scarcely reaches to the eyes : the lower jaw is rather longer than the upper, with 

 a callous bony tubercle beneath the tip. Both jaws round the edges, and the 

 palatines, are armed with bands ; the vomer with a patch of brushlike teeth. 

 The large and prominent tongue is smooth : the maxlllaries are plain, broad, and 

 even at the ends ; which when the mouth is closed, reach back to a level with the 

 hinder edge of the orbit. 



Eyes oval, rather small, about one sixth the length of the head, placed about 

 half way between the nape and tip of the muzzle, but nearer to the latter than to 

 the point of the opercle. The space between them at the top of the head is 

 deeply hollow, grooved, and not quite equal in width to their own diameter. 

 The orbits project considerably above the profile, and are anned with three un- 

 equal strong recurved bony prickles above, and with two little groups, one below 

 the other, behind, descending towards the cheeks ; each of the latter consisting of 

 from two to four or five minute erect short conic points rather than spines, 

 scarcely penetrating the skin, and placed close together. The uppermost of 

 these two groups is firmly fixed, belonging to the lower end of the posterior frontal 

 bone : the lower group is moveable, and loose in the skin, or merely cutaneous ; 



* When earned up into the country in hot weather, immersion for some hours, before cooking, 

 in one of the cool fresh springs or streams which are the boast and luxury of Madeira, will be found 

 greatly to restore the flavour and consistence of all fishes. Some of the more firm-fleshed kinds 

 may be thus kept with great advantage till the next day after capture and transport. 



