11 



GADID.E. 



Wliistle-fisli on the aiitliority of others ; and on inquiry, I 

 find that the custom of whistling when fishing is neither 

 practised nor known to the Cornish fishermen of the present 

 day, and, in fact, that this fish is of too little value to be 

 an object of any solicitude. I believe, indeed, that while 

 preserving the sound of the name, the term has been changed, 

 and a very different word substituted, and that for Whistle- 

 fish we ought to read Weasel-fish. Both the Three and 

 the Five Bearded Rocklings were called mustela from the 

 days of Pliny to those of Rondeletius, and thence to the 

 present time. 



A specimen fourteen inches long, and beautifully spotted, 

 was presented to the Zoological Society in 1832. The 

 finest examples of this species I have seen were two given 

 me in December 1834, by Dr. Thackeray, the Provost of 

 King''s College, Cambridge, from the largest of which, mea- 

 suring seventeen inches in length, the wood-engraving was 

 executed, and the following description taken. 



The length of the head compared to the length of the 

 body alone, w'ithout the caudal rays, is as one to four ; the 

 depth of the body equal to the length of the head : the first 

 dorsal fin delicate in structure ; the first ray elongated, the 

 rest hair-like : the second dorsal fin commencing immediately 

 behind the end of the first, and reaching along the back to 

 the tail, but ending a little short of the base of the caudal 

 rays : ventral fins Avitli the first two rays elongated, the 

 second the most so, the two disunited ; the other five rays 

 nearly equal, united, and short : pectoral fins rather large and 

 rounded : the vent half-way between the point of the chin 

 and the end of the fleshy portion of the tail ; the anal fin 

 commences immediately behind it, is one-fourth less in 

 length than the second dorsal, and ends on the same plane 

 with it : the tail moderate in size, and rounded at the end. 



