34 



Rudd, Esq. In the same communication, mention is 

 made of one found on that coast several years previously 

 by a pilot named Slater Potts : if its length was correctly 

 stated at twenty -four feet, it is the largest example of this 

 species that has been recorded. Another was stranded 

 on the 17th of September 1852, near Millar's Stone, in 

 the Bay of Cromarty. This specimen was secured for 

 the museum of Mr. Dunbar at Inverness, and on the 

 dispersion of that collection some years ago, came into 

 the hands of a bird-stuifer of the same place, who kept 

 it hanging in his shop until he tired of looking at it, 

 and no purchaser offering, it was at length consigned by 

 him to the dust-cart. 



A northern member of this genus was described by 

 Ascanius under the name of Ophidium Glesne in the 

 Copenhagen Memoirs for 1776, the generic name being 

 afterwards changed to Regalecus, by which he intended to 

 signify King of the Herrings. Glesne is the name of 

 a village near Bergen, where the fish was taken. This 

 species, which received other names from ichthyologists 

 who came after Ascanius, has been supposed to be the 

 same with the British fish ; and the case may be so, but 

 hitherto the Norwegian fish has been described by 

 Ascanius and Briinnich alone, and the one reckons only 126 

 rays in the dorsal fin, and the other 197, while the figures 

 given by these authors show a greater number. This 

 reckoning, however, is so different from the numbers of 

 the rays in the British fish, that they cannot be consi- 

 dered as the same species until the mistake, if there be 

 one, has been rectified by an accurate examination and 

 comparison of specimens. Gymnetrus Grillii of Lind- 

 roth, described in 1798, had the large number of 406 

 dorsal rays, with a total length of eighteen feet, 

 and ventrals measuring five. It is therefore safer for 



