118 SQUAMMIPENNES. 



the species is said to be common in the Mediterranean. 

 Willughby has given a figure of this fish, tab. V, 12, which 

 he calls Brama marina cauda forcipata ; and it is de- 

 scribed in the Appendix to his Natural History of Fishes, 

 page 17, from a specimen obtained, on the 18th of Septem- 

 ber 1681, in Middlesburgh Marsh, near the mouth of the 

 Tees, having been left there on the sands by the retiring 

 tide. Bloch has figured and described it, as quoted in the 

 synonymes at the head of this subject. 



This fish cannot certainly be so rare or so little known 

 generally as various authors have related. Colonel Mon- 

 tagu has recorded one example taken in Devonshire, and 

 another at Swansea : Mr. Couch has obtained one or two, 

 if not more, in Cornwall. It has been taken at Belfast, 

 where it is called Henfish ; and a correspondent in Mr. 

 Loudon's Magazine of Natural History, vol. vi. p. 529, says 

 this fish is not uncommon on the west coast of Scotland : 

 he had himself seen several individuals from the Frith of 

 Clyde and from the Argyleshire coast. 



I may farther state, that there are two specimens in the 

 British Museum, one in the collection of the Zoological 

 Society, and probably others in London. In 1828, a 

 specimen was taken on the coast of Normandy ; another 

 at Stockton-upon-Tees — the spot of its first recorded occur- 

 rence in England — in 1821 ; it has been taken in Berwick 

 bay, and Mr. Neill has recorded that several have been 

 taken in the Frith of Forth ; it has also been taken at St. 

 Andrew's. 



In the autumn of 1834, I saw no less than nine examples 

 of Brama Rail in the museums of Edinburgh, Newcastle- 

 upon-Tyne, and York ; including, besides, but two private 

 collections. 



Ray's Bream is mentioned in Nilsson's Prodromus, which 



