Holt and Calderwood — Report on the Rarer Fishes. 369 



species is also known from the coast of Norway and from the Mediterranean, 

 from the Cape of Good Hope and Japan, and has thus a very wide horizontal 

 range. As to the vertical range, the greatest depth of which we have seen a 

 record is 516 fathoms (Faroe Channel), while our Iceland specimen, trawled at a 

 depth which certainly did not greatly exceed 40 fathoms, is, perhaps, the only 

 one certainly known to have been caught in littoral waters, exclusive of specimens 

 cast ashore by storms or found floating at the surface. The Rabbit-fisli, however, 

 doubtless occurs not unfrequently above the 100-fathom line, though the finding 

 of its egg-case demonstrates that, as Dr. Glinther has suggested, propagation 

 takes place normally in deep water. 



The species is sufficiently well known, to obviate the necessity of a description 

 in this Paper, but our examples illustrate a condition to which attention has 

 not hitherto been directed. 



In a male measuring 12 inches from the snout to the origin of the second 

 dorsal, that fin arises at a distance from the true base of the first dorsal* equal to 

 the length of the said true base. The posterior rays of the first dorsal are bound 

 by membrane to the dorsum, so that there is formed an apparent base which 

 extends to the origin of the second dorsal, and when the first fin is depressed about 

 one-third of its spine extends beyond the origin of the second. 



In a male of 15 inches from snout to second dorsal the true bases of the two 

 fins are separated by an interval one-fourth longer than that of the first ; and in a 

 female of 16j- inches (measured in the same way) the interval is twice as long as 

 the true base of the first fin. 



These examples, therefore, show an interval between the apparent base of the 

 first and the commencement of the second fin, but the two fins are connected by a 

 fold of skin. This is usually hidden in a groove of the dorsum in spirit examples, 

 and we are not aware that its existence has been previously noted. 



In comparing our examples with a series, of various sizes, in the British 

 Museum, it is apparent that the separation of the dorsal fins is a feature which 

 becomes more marked with the growth of the fish, but not in a degree that can 

 be exactly formulated. 



Dr. Glinther, in comparing C. monstrosa and C. affinis, Capello, includes the 

 whole apparent base of the first dorsal in remarking (" Cat." viii. pp. 350—351) that 

 the second dorsal in the Portuguese species is removed from the first by a space 

 equal to the base of the latter. Tliis is evident from the figure given by Capello 

 (" Journ. Math. Phys. Nat. Lisb." iv. 1868), to whom Giinther refers as the 

 authority for his statement. A further statement that the pectorals in C. monstrosa 

 attain to the posterior extremity of the pelvics must be modified in view of the 



* The base of the spine is included in this measurement. 



TKANS. ROr. DTJB. SOC, N.S. VOL. V., PART IX. 3 H 



