POLYPRION CERNIER. 189 



are occasionally varied on the sides with paler and darker clouds. The dorsal, 

 anal, pectoral, and caudal fins are always uniform dark-brown approaching to black. 

 The borders or edges of the ventral, anal, and angles of the caudal fin, are gene- 

 rally one or all pure white ; and the web of the spiny part of the dorsal, anal, 

 and ventral fins is paler than the others, and somewhat clouded or mottled with 

 white. The cornea of the eye above is coloured like the back : the iris is, on 

 capture, dark rich brown and gold, or sometimes coppery, with bright violet 

 streaks : but it soon turns uniform dead silvery white. The pupil is black, and 

 not in the least opaline. 



On dissection, the cavity of the abdomen proves to be large, with the mass 

 of viscera proportionably small, and altogether pale or whitish. The liver is rather 

 large, with a remarkably long duct. The stomach, though the fish is a voracious 

 feeder, is rather small, conico-cylindric, and with a thick hard coat. The caeca are 

 short and slender, but extremely numerous, and indefinite in number,* fonning 

 a thick double conglomerate bunch, or bundle, like the glandular pancreiform mass 

 of the Tunnies ; nearly as large as, though shorter than, the stomach. Each of 

 the two portions of this bundle is again subdivided into several conglobate groups, 

 or fascicles, with a common trunk or stalk. Intestine large and voluminous, 

 making five or six volutions, amongst which is involved the dark-red spleen. Air- 

 bladder large and oblong, attached completely to the spine, fi:om which it is not 

 separable without rupture. 



The vertebrae are twenty-seven in number, of which fourteen are caudal.t Of 

 the thirteen abdominal vertebree, the six or seven last are furnished with widely 

 divaricate apophyses beneath : the three last pairs of these being partly combined 

 at the base by a transverse rib. The vertebrae are all strong, thick, and short ; 

 the first being rather shorter than the following. The bony crest, or short keel 

 on the back of the scull, or nape, is formed by a prominence at the fore-end of the 

 interparietal. 



It lias been remarked already, that, in point of quality or flavour, 

 there is no appreciable or constant difference in this fish at different 

 seasons of the year. I have taken the female with two enormous yellow 

 masses of eggs, well developed, in August. The individual was of large 

 size, measuring tliree feet four inches in length ; but it possessed no 

 peculiar excellence, though a good fish. Other examples, taken at the 

 same season, of both male and female fishes, were equally good eating, 

 though not in milt or roe. 



The individual figured, taken early in April, measured about an inch 

 more than two feet in length. The spines of the dorsal, anal, and ventral 

 fins were almost even or unarmed, with only a faint tooth or prickle here 

 and there. 



* MM. Cuvier and Valenciennes, probably from the partial decomposition of the viscera in their 

 example, say, " There are only two cajca, one very short, the other very long." 



t MM. Cuvier and Valenciennes say that there are thirteen abdominal, and thirteen caudal 

 vertebrae. 



