480 THE GYMNETKUS GRILLII. 



being far from quick in its movements — when tbey haul 

 it inio the boat. 



Nilsson, I should remark, does not consider the fish 

 in question identical with the Iceland specimen described 

 and figured by Yarrell. The two sides are, the Professor 

 says, different. The pupil of the eye is vertically oval; 

 the pectorals are differently placed ; and the rays in the 

 long dorsal fin are 160 ; and he has therefore described it 

 as specifically distinct, under the name of Trachypterus 

 arcticus, Nilss. 



The Gymnetnis Grillii, Lindi'oth (Sikl-Koiir/e, or, 

 herring-king, Norw.), has as yet only been met with 

 on the northern and western coasts of Norway, and that 

 even less seldom than the "Vaagmaer, to which it would 

 seem to be nearly allied, though smaller in proportion to 

 its length. Five undoubted specimens of this curious fish 

 were taken towards the end of the last century in the 

 Norwegian seas, and all were of a large size ; one of them 

 measuring no less than forty-two feet in length ! This 

 had imprisoned itself between two piles forming part of 

 an old pier in the Bergen Fjord, in 1791. Only a single 

 specimen, and that much mutilated, seems to have been 

 preserved. The fish was cast ashore on the island of 

 Hitteren, off Drontheim (driven there, it was supposed, by 

 a shark cr other monster of the deep), about fifty-five 

 years ago, and was afterwards sent to the Stockholm 

 Museum by Dr. Lindroth. According to his description, 

 taken from the fresh fish, it was shaped as a sword-blade, 

 thin, and tajiering towards the tail. Its length was 

 eighteen feet, depth fourteen inches, and thickness (at the 

 most) three inches and a half. It weighed 180 pounds. 

 The colour was silvery grey ; body covered with small 

 excrescences ; head compressed and small ; each ventral 

 consisted of a single ray of five feet in length, rounded at 

 the root. The dorsal fin extended along the whole back, 



