81 
pectoral 12; ventral 1; no anal. No teeth; a soft tongue. The face 
and inside of the mouth black. Anus 4 feet 9 inches from the head. 
Iris a silver-white. He ran on shore at Filey Bay, March 18, 1796 ; 
was seen by four women, who took him and sold him to a man who 
brought him to York, where on March 21 I saw him. Though there 
was then no caudal fin, it is not clear that he never had one, for there 
was an appearance of mutilation in its place. The two sides were 
precisely alike. The eye in the drawing is placed a little too low.” 
B 
— 
WD. 
This description is mentioned by M. Valenciennes in his ‘ Histoire 
des Poissons,’ x. 365, under the name of Gymnetrus Banksii ; nothing 
is said of the figures which accompanied the letter. I can see nothing 
in the account or figures to induce me to believe that it is different 
from the Regalecus Glesne, or the specimen from Cornwall. 
Mr. Yarrell, in his letter to Mr. Whitehead, printed in Dr. Jacobs’s 
account of the Northumberland specimen, p. 10, gives the description 
of a specimen which was caught in March 1844, at Crovie, near Mac- 
duff, in Scotland, sent by Mr. John Marten of Elgin to Dr. George 
Johnston and Mr. Yarrell. 
It would therefore appear that the specimen from the coast of 
Northumberland is at least the fourth time that a fish of this genus 
has been recorded as found on the coast of Britain. 
From the comparison of the various descriptions and figures given 
by the English observers, and those given by Ascanius, Brunnich and 
Lindroth, I believe there is only a single species yet found in the 
North Sea, and it appears that that species occasionally comes as far 
south as the coast of Cornwall. 
The great distinction between Regalecus Glesne and R. Grillii is 
the number of the rays in the dorsal fin; but as Valenciennes justly 
observes, that Ascanius’s figure represents more rays than he de- 
scribes the specimen to have had, and in this respect it agrees with 
the description of R. Grillii and with the specimens which have since 
occurred, I think it probable that the number in the text is a mis- 
rint. 
n Ascanius represents the five longitudinal streaks mentioned in the 
description of the Filey specimen. 
Mr. Whitehead’s specimen agrees with the one from Filey, in 
having the five convex longitudinal lines. These lines are shown in 
the painting made from the fish when more fresh, but they are not 
so distinct in the specimen in the fluid ; yet they have been rendered 
more visible than when I first saw it by some glass which had been 
put on the specimen to sink it in the fluid. 
The black bands so well marked in the painting of this fish were 
also observed in the specimen cast ashore at Crovie, near Macduff, in 
March 1844, described by Mr. Marten, and in Gymnetrus Grillii of 
Lindroth ; and they are indistinctly represented in the drawing of 
the Cornish specimen. 
The ventral fins in Mr. Marten’s specimen “consisted of two fila- 
ments 3 feet in length ; they were fringed with a thin membrane on 
two sides, and had evidently been broken.” 
No. CXCV.—Proceepin6s or tHE Zoouocicat Society. 
