GEN. BLENNIUS. MONTAGUE'S BLENNY. 25J 



papillae. " The ova have always appeared to me," 

 says M. Valenciennes, " small ; and I have never 

 discovered any thing in my own researches, nor in 

 those of others, which led me to conclude that 

 the Blennies are viviparous." M. Bisso particu- 

 larly observes that the females of certain species 

 have their ovaries full of more than 1,000,000 of 

 eggs, differently coloured and spotted. Their flesh 

 is tender, white, and agreeable. They live in small 

 shoals on rocky coasts; are fished with different kinds 

 of nets, and sometimes are inebriated by poisonous 

 plants, such as the Euphorbia dendroides, a kind 

 of spurge : their usual dimensions are from four to 

 five inches, and they are but rarely seen to attain 

 eight inches : they are abundant in the Mediterra- 

 nean, and still more on the British coasts. 



Gen. XXXIX. BLENNIUS. No fewer than thirty 

 species of this genus have been catalogued in syste- 

 matic works on Ichthyology, of which four frequent 

 the British seas. The appendages on the head con- 

 stitute good specific characters, and we shall follow 

 Mr. Yarrell in commencing with the species which 

 is furnished with the greatest number: the first 

 three have the dorsal somewhat interrupted near its 

 middle. All these are fish of little value, and need 

 not occupy us long. 



(Sp. 64.) B. MontaguL Montague's Blenny was 

 first described, of course under a different appella- 

 tion, by the excellent Naturalist whose name has 

 been attached to it, independently, by Dr. Fleming 

 and M. Valenciennes. The coasts of Devonshire 



