100 ELACATE CANADA. 



Maurice, declare that Bloch has added ventral fins to his plate, which are not 

 seen in the original drawing, and that he coloured them after the description of 

 Marcgrave, who was in Brazil with Prince Maurice, and published a work on the 

 natural history of that country.* In this work he gives a plate of our animal, 

 and describes it as a fish, sometimes nine feet in length, and thick as a man's 

 body, very dark above, chalky-white below, &c., &c., and called by the Brazilians 

 ceiocu ph'a. 



Dr. Mitchill's description of the Cobia is the best up to his time, as it was 

 taken from a recent specimen, and is accompanied by a very good figure ; yet 

 some of his observations are incomprehensible. He says, for instance, " I have 

 been obliged to constitute a new family (genus) to receive and accommodate a 

 fish," &c., &c., and this he calls Centronotns, when a genus of the same name, 

 and for the same fish, had been established by Lacepede more than twenty 

 years before. 



Cuvier and Valenciennes have arranged the Cobia in the genus Elacate, and 

 with the specific name Atlantica, although they observe, " II y a toute apparence 

 que cette Elacate est la Gasterosteus canadus" of Linnseus. Perhaps time will 

 prove that the specific name they have chosen is no more characteristic than that 

 of the great Swedish naturalist, as this fish may be found to inhabit the South 

 Seas, as well as the Atlantic Ocean, even if it has not been found there already, 

 in the Elacate Pondiceriana. 



* Hist. Rer. Nat. Brasilia;. 



