BANKS'S OAR-FISH, 29 



but mostly too imperfect for the identification of species, 

 occur in various periodicals. The Annual Register re- 

 cords the taking of one of these at Whitby on the 22nd 

 of January 1759; and Mr. Stanton of Newcastle in- 

 formed Messrs. Hancock and Embleton, that about the 

 end of the 18th century he recollected the exhibition of 

 a similar fish in Newcastle. It was ten feet long, and two 

 inches thick. A sketch was made of it by Bewick the 

 celebrated wood-engraver, which has been unfortunately 

 mislaid. The same gentlemen were told by John Blackett 

 Anderson, of Walker, near Newcastle, that he recollects 

 the capture of two fishes about the year 1800, in a shallow 

 pool at the outer Fern Islands. The larger was eighteen 

 feet long, about a foot deep, and of a silvery colour. In 

 1796 one was got at Cullercoats, near Newcastle, as men- 

 tioned in a pamphlet published in 1849 by John Such, 

 of that town. On the 19th of March 1844, one was 

 stranded, after a severe north-east gale, at the village of 

 Crovie, in the estuary of the Doveran, near Macduff in 

 Banffshire, and was afterwards exhibited in the Town-hall 

 of Elgin. From the correspondence of Mr. John Martin 

 of the "Elgin Institution," with the late Dr. Johnston 

 of Berwick, and the sketches he sent, Mr. Yarrell enter- 

 tained no doubt of its specific identity with the Regalecus 

 to be fully described below, and whose portrait is placed 

 at the commencement of this article. Mr. Martin states the 

 measurements of the Crovie specimen to be, total length 

 twelve feet ; depth one foot ; thickness two inches and 

 three-quarters ; height of the dorsal fin two inches and a 

 half, length of the ventral rays three feet; length of the 

 pectorals two inches and a half. The head measured nine 

 inches from the symphysis of the mandible to the end of 

 the gill-cover ; and from thence to the vent the distance 

 was forty-six inches. There was no caudal fin. The 



