GEN. LAMPRIS. THE OPAH, OR KING-FISH. 221 



taken in tropical seas, there is every reason to sus- 

 pect that the information thus communicated was 

 inaccurate in all respects. 



In the year 1762, Stroem had an opportUDity of 

 examining and describing this fish in Norway, and 

 Miiller imagining there was a resemblance between 

 it and the Zeus vomer^ originated the notion that it 

 was an inhabitant of the Brazilian waters, as well 

 as of the Norwegian. A few years afterwards, 

 in 1768, Gunner supplied a description in the Me- 

 moirs of Drontheim, accompanied with a tolerable 

 figure. In the year 1767? one was found stranded 

 on the coast of Northumberland, and a second was 

 taken not far from Scarborough ; and five years 

 afterwards, in 1772, another was obtained at Brix- 

 ham, Torbay, w^hich weighed 140 lbs. and measured 

 four feet and a half in length. In 1777? a specimen 

 was captured at Dieppe, w^hich w^as described by 

 Duhamel under the name of Poisson Lune^ the only 

 assistance he found for his account being another 

 example which existed in the Paris Museum. Yery 

 shortly afterwards, another individual was taken at 

 Helsingborg in Sweden, which Retzius described as 

 a new genus, under the name of Lampris^ in the 

 Memoirs of Stockholm for the year 1799. 



Coming down to the present century, we have 

 now to mention that two specimens from the Danish 

 coast formed the subjects of the descriptions and 

 figures of Holten in the Memoirs of the Copenhagen 

 Society in 1802, and in his Danish Zoology, 1806. 

 Lacepede also, in the year 1802, constituted this 



