BANKS'S OAR-FISH. 31 



On the 26th of March 1849, a fine fish of this genus 

 was captured by the crew of a fishing coble belonging to 

 Cullercoats, consisting of Bartholomew Taylor and his two 

 sons. It was much injured by the captors in their endea- 

 vours to secure it, and by subsequent handling during its 

 exhibition at Tynemouth, North and South Shields, and 

 Newcastle. Fortunately it was seen at the last-named 

 town by Albany Hancock, Esq., and Dr. Dennis Emble- 

 ton, who made drawings of it, and drew up a detailed 

 account of its external appearance and internal structure, 

 which was read at a meeting of the Tyneside Naturalists' 

 Club, and published in the Annals and Magazine of 

 Natural History for July 1849. From that paper the 

 following abridged extracts are taken by permission. 



The fish, though much injured and greatly faded, was 

 fresh and had a uniform silvery-grey colour, except a few 

 irregular streaks and dark spots towards the fore-part of 

 the body, and there were remains of a bright iridescence 

 about the pectoral fin and head, a blue tint predomina- 

 ting. The body is excessively compressed, like a double- 

 edged sword-blade, its greatest thickness being below the 

 middle, and the dorsal edge is sharper than the ventral 

 one. The total length when the mouth is retracted is 

 twelve feet three inches, and the depth immediately be- 

 hind the gills eight inches and a half: two feet farther 

 back the greatest depth of eleven inches and a quarter is 

 attained, and at the end of the dorsal fin it has diminished 

 to three. The skin is covered with a silvery matter in 

 which the scales are invisible to the naked eye, but which 

 is easily detached and adheres to anything it comes in 

 contact with. Submitted to the microscope, this nacre 

 was found to consist of scales like those on the wing of a 

 moth. Round the hind border of the operculum there 

 is a broad dusky patch ; a crescentic dark mark exists 



