* SCOMBR1D.E. 



A CANTHOPTERL SCOMBRID^. 



THE GERMON. 



Thynnus alalonga, Le German, CUVIER et VALENC. viii. p. 120, t. 215. 

 German, BARBOT, Churchill's Voy. v. pi. 29 (1732). 



Alilonghi, DUHAMEL, Peches, pp. 203, 207. 



Ala-longa, CETTI, Hist. Nat. Sard. iii. p. 191. 



Orcynus alalonga, COUCH (Jon.), MSS. fig. 

 Long-finned Tunny, COUCH (R. Q.), Zool. 1413, with fig. 



CUVIER considers it to be one of the most remarkable 

 facts in the history of ichthyology, that this fish of 

 great size, very distinct in its characters, excellent as an 

 article of food, and the subject of productive fisheries 

 on the coasts of Europe, should have remained unnoticed 

 by ichthyologists until a recent period. Though it is 

 captured in abundance on the north coasts of Spain, 

 facing the Bay of Biscay, and appears to be not un- 

 common on the French Atlantic coasts as high as 

 Rochelie, it either rarely enters the English Channel, or 

 it has been overlooked by British naturalists as much as 

 it had been by those of Spain and France. It is to the 

 Messieurs Couch, father and son, that we owe its intro- 

 duction into the list of English fishes. Mr. R. Q. 

 Couch informs us in the Zoologist for 1846 that two 



