272 THE BONITO. 



carcase, wliicli looks like beef, is to be foimd exposed 

 for sale, salted, iii almost all Mediterranean towns. 



In my museum I have a cast of a small tunny, wliicU 

 measures 4ft. Sin., and weighed about 501bs. It was 

 given me by Ml-. Grove, of Charing Cross, September 

 30, 1868, and, when eaten, it was agreed by all to 

 resemble very fine veal cutlet. I am very anxious to 

 obtain a specimen of the hard roe of the tunny, to see 

 what size the eggs of this monster fish may be. In 

 May, 1880, Mr. Henry Lee brought me a bone v/hicli 

 had been trawled up by the Margate smack, Fdanche, 

 when fishing on the Foreland Ground. The bone 

 certainly was a puzzler, but Mr. Lee and myself 

 diagnosed it as being the skull of a very large tunny, 

 an opinion which was confirmed by Professor Flower, 

 of the Koyal College of Surgeons. This tunny had 

 probably floated after some accident or natural death, 

 and as the skin decayed, the bones, especially the heavy 

 skull bone, had dropped to the bottom of the sea. 



THE BONITO. 



Acanthapteri. Scomber ida. 



[Scomber pelamis.) 



I HAVE almost invariably remarked when reading books 

 on foreign travel that the author manages to get across 

 the ocean with a very few words of description. Thus 

 the events and the objects seen in the vast Atlantic be- 

 tween Liverpool and New York, or in the great waters 

 sailed over by our friend Mr. Wigram's big ships be- 

 tween London and Australia, are summed up in, say, 

 half a page. That this is a mistake I am quite certain, 

 as in all seas there must be abundance of surface fish. 



