186 SERRANID/E. 



weight, arc, however, by no means exceedingly uncommon ; but they 

 are rarely seen of greater size. 



The fishermen pretend to distinguish two kinds of Sherny, one with 

 a long and pointed, the other with a broad and short muzzle : but I 

 have ascertained these to pass by such imperceptible gradations from 

 one to the other, whilst the characters themselves are even in extreme 

 cases little appreciable, besides being accompanied by no other constant 

 marks of difference whatever, that, except for a safeguard against future 

 error, it were scarcely worth while recording them as varieties. The 

 " Chernotta" is confessedly, as it is obviously, merely the young or small- 

 sized fish. 



The Portuguese name Cherne seems to be but another form of Cernio 

 or Cernia* the Nicene, or Cornier the Marseillaise name of this fish : 

 and MM. Cuvier and Valenciennes trace up these words through their 

 Italian representatives of cerna, or cernua, to cernere. According to 

 this account, it would appear that the name cerna or cernua, being ap- 

 plied to the small refuse fishes in the market, which are picked out or 

 set apart from others to be sold separately, has come to be used more 

 particularly to designate in different places different species of the Perch- 

 tribe,-|- which often form indeed the mass of such rejectamenta ; and 

 hence (?), to designate emphatically the Percidous Sherny. It must be 

 owned, this reasoning is not very clear : but I am unable to supply a 

 better etymology ; only hinting a suspicion that the Spanish language 

 might afford one. The lists of Canarian fishes contain a " Cherna :"" 

 which throws light at least upon the following passage in Pennanfs 

 history of the Common Cod-fish (Gadus viorhua, L.) " There are, 

 nevertheless, certain species (of the Cod-fish genus) found near the Ca- 

 nary Islands, called Cherny, j of which we know no more than the name ; 

 but which, according to the unfortunate Captain Glass, are better-tasted 

 than the Newfoundland kind." § 



The Sherny is a plain, dull-coloured, and clumsy, coarse, or heavy- 

 looking fish ; of an ungainly or unwieldy figure and proportions, being 

 much too thick and deep for its length ; with the mouth or gape and 

 gill-opening very wide, and an enormous head. Its resemblance and 

 generic affinity to Serranus are much greater than would be apprehended 

 from a mere inspection of MM. Cuvier and Valenciennes'* figure (t. 42), j] 



* Risso, by a manifest misprint, has Lernio or lernia. 



■\ Hence perhaps Belon's use of it to designate the Ruffe. {Acerma vulgaris, Cuv. ; or Perca 

 rernuu, L.) Gaza had long before arbitrarily applied it as a translation of the o^(p«; of Aristotle. 



X " Hist. Canary Islands, 198." $ Penn. Brit. Zool. iii. 17;{. 



II It is to be regretted that these authors do not state the size of the example from wliith their 

 figure was derived. This should always be done ; but espoiially in the ease of large fishes, which 

 are apt to vary considerably at dilfcrent stages of their growth. 



