RAYS SEA-BUKA.M. 



7 'J 



above the eyes. The ]iectoTnl inicl ventral tins yel- 

 lowish. 



In the Mediterranean, nrcordinii' to llisso", Ray's 

 Bream attains a length of 70 em. and a weight of 6 

 kgrm. The specimen taken hy Schagrrstuom on the 

 25th of November, 1825, on llildesborg shore near 

 Landskrona "after a .stormy night with a strong N. W. 

 wind," was (>()7 mm. long (including the lobes of tlie 

 caudal tin) and 2*.s7 kgrm. in weight. Four other spe- 

 cimens are recorded by Nilsson a.s taken on the west 

 coast of Sweden from Scania to BohusliUi, and one of 

 them, which was cast up after a N. W. storm on the 

 16th of December, 1843, in the neighbourhood of Tjorn^ 

 is now in the Koyal Museum and was the original of 

 V. Wright's drawing. Its length is 472 mm. to the 

 end of the middle caudal rays. Tliere is no record 

 as yet of its capture in Norway; but in Denmark, 

 according to Kroyer, it has Ijeen cast ashore after 

 stormy weather three times iu Zealand, and according 

 to Winther'' it has once (1876) been caught oft' the 

 Skaw. In the Museum of Greifswald'' there is said to 

 be a specimen from the Baltic. HoAvever, it really 

 belongs to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic outside 

 it. It is said to have been found once oft' Newfound- 

 land", and if our list of synonyms be correct, it has 

 an equally wide range in the Pacific. 



In the ^lediterranean Ray's Sea-Bream ranks as 

 a delicacy, but as it is really an inhabitant of the 

 depths of the sea, up to 900 metres — "the large 

 eyes and tlu; high development of the dermal sensory 

 organs," says Winther, "make it admirably suited tor 

 a life iu the ocean-depths" — no constant method of 

 fishing for it c'an 1)6 adopted. Only during summer 

 does it come up in small })()dies nearer the surface, j)ro- 

 bably in order to spawn, and it is then caught in 

 fairly large numbers on long-lines at certain spots, 

 near Genoa for example. The fishermen also say, ac- 

 cording to Lunel'', that it is most often taken at a 

 depth of fi-om 400 to 500 metres during the sinking 

 or i-aising of the; long-line. Thus it does not seem by 

 any means to be a constant inha})itant of the bottom 

 of the sea. 



The specimens met with in Scandinavia have most 

 often been found cast up on shore after storm, a fact 

 to which LtJTKEN^ has called special attention. In or- 

 der to explain why these specimens have come so near 

 the surface and so far away from their true home in 

 the depths that they could feel the eft'ects of storm, 

 the assumption has been made that they were troubled 

 by parasitic -worms — it is known that Ray's Bream 

 suft'ers from them greatly, especially during summer — 

 and that it ^vas this disease that drove them away 

 fi'om their usual life and home. 



•• Eur. Mer., vol. Ill, p. 454. 



* EkstrOm, Gbgs Vet. Vitt. Samli. HaiuU. 1850. p. 37. 

 " NaUirh. Tidskr., 1. c. 



'' MoBius and Heincke, Fische der Ostsee, p. 41. 



■^ Brown-Goude: The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of United States, Sect. I (Wash. 1884). p. 335, where tliis species is also 

 said to have been found in Rt-rninda. 

 ■'■ 1. c., p. 177. 

 'J 1. c, p. 492. 



