468 Zoological Society. 



specimens have not been examined with a view to this character, and 

 in which no traces of the organ are discernible, either in the dry skin, 

 or in the existence of a fossa in the skull. 



4. Letter on the Deal-fish, from Dr. Duguid to 

 Dr. Barker. Communicated by Mr. Yarrell. 



" KirkwaU, 5 March 1851. 

 "In April 1829, I received from Mr. Strang, Sanday, a specimen 

 of a fish which had been found on the shores of that island, with a 

 request that I should give him some information about it. He men- 

 tioned that he had met with many specimens during a series of 

 years, — that it was well kno^vn to the natives of the island, by whom 

 it was called the De«/-fish, and that they often found it thrown 

 ashore, and even occasionally used it as food. I easily ascertained, 

 from the works to which I had access, that it was a fish unknown to 

 the British Fauna, but could not determine what it really was. The 

 specimen being a good deal mutilated about the head and abdomen, 

 and in a state of partial decomposition, I did not attempt to preserve 

 it, but drew up as correct a description of it as its condition admitted 

 of, which I sent to Dr. Fleming, along with all the information about 

 it which I could obtain from Mr. Strang, and also a somewhat rough 

 drawing. Dr. Fleming wrote, of date 8th May, 1829, at once deter- 

 mining the fish to be the Gymnogaster arcticus of Brunnich, or 

 Vaagmaer, as described by Cuvier in his ' Regne Animal,' ii. 246, a 

 native of the seas of Iceland ; — at the same time mentioning some 

 slight discrepancies, which more perfect specimens, since procured, 

 have completely removed. With my consent, he drew up a notice of 

 it, which was mserted in the 4th volume of ' Loudon's Magazine of 

 Nat. Hist.,' along with a plate from the drawing sent. This article 

 I have not met with, having merely seen Yarrell's quotations from it. 

 Since 1829 I have met with seven or eight specimens, some of which 

 were mutilated by birds, and some quite entire, and from the latter 

 I have ascertained the existence of ventral fins, which are exceedingly 

 minute and rudimental, and easily overlooked, more especially if the 

 specimen be not quite fresh and perfect. I am now therefore enabled 

 to say with certainty that there can be no doubt of the identity of 

 the fish occurring in these islands with the Vaagmaer, as described 

 and figured in Yarrell's Supplement to the 1st edition of his 'British 

 Fishes,' from information supplied by Professor Reinhardt of Copen- 

 hagen, and there named Trachypterus vogmarus. In the first figure, 

 given at page 14, the ventral fins are much too long and conspicuous, 

 but they are quite correctly represented in the vignette at page 18. 

 The late Dr. John Reid, of St. Andrews, pubUshed an article in the 

 Annals of Nat. Hist., June 1849, describing a specimen of the Tra- 

 chypterus Bogmarus thrown ashore on the coast of Fifeshire, in which 

 he says, ' No unquestionably genuine specimen of this rare fish has, 

 as far as I am aware, been hitherto found in the British seas ; for 

 the description and figure of the fishes thrown ashore in Orkney, 

 supposed to be specimens of the Deal-fish or Vaagmaer, given by 

 Dr. Fleming on the authority of Dr. Duguid, differ in so many im- 



