ICHTHYOLOGY. 



183 



Aoanlhop- 



Sconibe- 

 ri<lii'. 



at Constantinople on a great or systematic scale, but is 

 cliii'fly concentrated in the interior of the Mediterranean. 

 The species sometimes wanders along the British shores ; 

 and a fine specimen, measurinj; nine feet in length, was 

 killed in the beautiful Gairloch, opposite Greenock, in 

 July 1831. It is preserved in the Andersonian Museum, 

 Glasgow. 



The fish known to navigators under the name of Bonito 

 belongs to our present genus. It is the Th. pelamijs of 

 Cuv. and sometimes occurs along the British shores. It 

 resembles the tunny in form, but is a great deal smaller, 

 seldom exceeding the length of thirty inches. It is cele- 

 brated in the tropical seas for its eager pursuit of the fly- 

 ing fish. The bonito of the Mediterranean, however, be 

 it remembered, belongs to the following genus. 



Genus Auxis, Cuv. Corselet and pectoral fins as in 

 Thynnus ; but the dorsal fins distant, as in Scomber. 



We here engrave (Plate CCCII. fig. ■->) a species com- 

 mon in the Mediterranean, where it is called bonito, 

 Auxis vulgaris, Cuv. It is of a fine blue colour above, 

 with oblique blackish lines. The flesh is red and coarse. 

 We have eaten it during a voyage to Genoa, in the course 

 of which the vessel was followed by a flock for an entire 

 day. We struck them with a small harpoon from the 

 bowsprit. The species seldom exceeds six pounds. 



In regard to the genus Pelamys of Cuv.' we shall here 

 merely state, that it is distinguished from the tunnies by 

 its strong, separate, and pointed teeth. The vague name 

 of bonito is likewise applied to one of the species, the 

 Scomber sarda of Bloch, common in the Mediterranean. 

 The genus Cybium has the body elongated, without corse- 

 let, the teeth large, compressed, cutting, in the form of 

 lancets. On the palatines there are only the close-set 

 kind of teeth. The species inhabit the warmer parts both 

 of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and some of them at- 

 tain a great size. The genus Thyrsites differs from the 

 preceding in having the anterior teeth longer than the 

 others, as well as the palatines being furnished with point- 

 ed teeth. 



The genus Gempylus is allied in many respects to that 

 last named, but it wants the teeth upon the palate, and 

 the ventrals are almost imperceptible. See Plate CCCII. 

 fig. 6, where we have represented G. prometheus, Cuv., a 

 species discovered at St Helena, by Messrs Quoy and 

 Gaimard. 



We shall here briefly notice two genera which cannot 

 be better placed than in succession to the preceding 

 Scomberida. We allude to Lepidopus and Trichiurus,^ 

 which resemble the two last-named groups in almost 

 every thing, except that they entirely want the finlets, or 

 false fins, and even the soft rays of the dorsal. There is 

 merel)' a vestige of the ventral fins. It is a singular thing, 

 as Cuvier has observed, that a fish so gcnerallj' met with 

 as the great Lepidopus argyreus of the European seas 

 (there is no other species), so handsome, and so large, 

 should have remained unknown to naturalists so recently 

 as the end of the eighteenth century, and that it should 

 have been afterwards successively described by various 

 writers, under a new name, and by each in ignorance of 

 the labours of his predecessor. If we figure to ourselves 

 a large and broad riband of silver, swimming with a wavy 

 motion through the water, and casting from it in its pro- 

 gress the most beautiful reflections of light, we may form 

 some notion of the general aspect of this creature in its 

 living state. Its length, as described by Montagu^ (under 



the name of Zipotheca tc(radens), was five feet six inches, Acanthop. 

 with a depth at the gills of four inches and a half; it gra- tery};ii. 

 dually decreased from the vent to the commencement of Sconilje- 

 the anal fin, where it measured only two inches in depth ; v^_^_J_^ 

 at the end of that fin the form was nearly round, and the 

 diameter only half an inch. The weight, without the in- 

 testines, was about six pounds. Montagu's specimen was 

 taken in Salcomb Harbour, on the coast of South Devon, 

 on the 4th June 1808. It was swimming with astonish- 

 ing velocity, icil/i its head above water, going, as the fisher- 

 men said, "as swift as a bird,'' and was killed by the blow 

 of an oar. It occurs occasionally on most of the Euro- 

 pean coasts ; is more frequent in some parts of the Medi- 

 terranean ; and has been captured as far south as the Cape 

 of Good Hope. See our representation on Plate CCCII. 

 fig. 4. 



The other genus to which we have alluded, that of 

 Trichiurus, Linn., resembles the preceding in its head 

 and teeth, but it has not even a vestige of a ventral fin ; 

 the anal is replaced by a series of very small spines, which 

 scarcely project above the skin, and the tail terminates 

 in a filament or lengthened point, without any caudal fin. 

 We here figure (Plate CCCII. fig. 8) an Indian species, 

 named Trichiurus savala by Cuvier. We believe it is 

 synonymous with T. armutus of Mr Gray's Illustrations 

 of Indian Zoology. Some additional species are figured 

 in Mr Griffith's valuable edition of the Animal King- 

 dom, and that called the silvery hair-tail, or blade fish 

 ( T. lepturus, Linn.), was some years ago cast ashore on the 

 Moray Firth.^ 



Another group of Scomberida;, or rather a branch of 

 the first great tribe, contains the sword-fish, and a few 

 other species, which modern Ichthyologists, anterior to the 

 time of Cuvier, placed too much apart from each other, 

 solely because some were possessed of ventral fins, while 

 in others those parts were wanting, " difference," observes 

 our author, " qui ne sert qu'a prouver de plus en plus le 

 pen d'importance de ces nageoires pour un raethode na- 

 turelle."^ Their relationship to the tunnies and macke- 

 rels has been still less appreciated, although very obvi- 

 ous in the form of the tail, the structure of the intestines, 

 the quality of the flesh, and even in the parasitical ani- 

 mals by which they are infested ; but as they differ in 

 wanting the false fins, all actual resemblances have been 

 set aside, at least in regard to such as are destitute of 

 ventral fins. 



Genus Xiphias, Linn. Pertains to the family Scom- 

 beridoe, and approaches the tunnies especially in the ex- 

 treme smallness of the scales, the carination of the sides 

 of the tail, the strength of the caudal fin, and the whole 

 of the interior organization. The distinctive character 

 consists in the lengthened beak or sword-like prolonga- 

 tion of the muzzle or upper jaw, which forms a powerful 

 weapon of offence, and enables them to attack and over- 

 come the largest marine animals. This beak is composed 

 chiefly of the vomer and intermaxillaries, strengthened 

 towards the base by the ethmoid, the frontals, and maxil- 

 laries. The branchia? are not divided like the toothing 

 of a comb, but formed each of two large parallel plates, 

 of which the surface is reticulated. The rapidity of their 

 course is excessive, the quality of their flesh excellent. 



Such is a brief indication of the characters of the genus 

 Xiphias of Linnaeus, which has been divided as follows, in 

 more recent times. 



\st. Genus Xiphias proper, Cuv. No ventral fin. 



149. 



' Hist. Nat. dcs Po^isons. t. vUi. 

 Regnc Animal, t. ii. p. 199. 



■ Both genera were formerly placed by Cuvier in the ensuing family T^Niom.E 

 • Memoirs of the Werncrian Nat. Hist. Sflcictif, vol. i. p. 8*2 



The genus Pela.mys corresponds to that named Sarda in the second edition of tlie 



(See Rc^nc Animal, t. ii. p. 217.) 



• f.inti. Trans, vol. xi. p. 200. 



" Hist. Nat. des Poitsons, t. viii. p. 254. 



