180 THK OYMNETIUIS O1ULUI. 



being far from quick in its movements when they haul 

 it into the boat. 



Nilsson, I should remark, does not consider the fish 

 in question identical with the Iceland specimen described 

 and figured by Yarrell. The two sides arc, the Professor 

 says, dill'erent. The pupil of the eye is vertically oval ; 

 the pectorals are differently placed ; and the rays in the 

 long dorsal fin are 160 ; and he has therefore described it 

 as specifically distinct, under the name of Tnn-h>ji>lci-ns 

 arcticus, Nilss. 



The Gymncti'its Gr/llil, Lindroth (Sild-Konge, or, 

 herring-king, Norw.), has as yet only been met with 

 on the northern and western coasts of Norway, and that 

 even less seldom than the Vaagmaer, to which it would 

 seem to be nearly allied, though smaller in proportion to 

 its length. Five undoubted specimens of this curious tish 

 were taken towards the end of the last century in the 

 Norwegian seas, and all were of a large size; one of them 

 measuring no less than forty-two feet in length ! This 

 had imprisoned itself between tw r o piles forming part of 

 an old pier in the Bergen Fjord, in 1791. Only a single 

 specimen, and that much mutilated, seems to have been 

 preserved. The fish wns e;ist a-hore on the island of 

 Jlitteren, off Drontheim (driven then*, it was supjipsed, by 

 a shark or other monster of the deep), about fifty-live 

 years ago, and \\as afterwards sent to the Stockholm 

 Museum by Dr. Lindroth. According to his description, 

 taken from the fresh fish, it was shaped as a sword-blade, 

 thin, and tapering to\\ards the tail. Its length was 

 eighteen feet, depth fourteen inches, and thickness tat the 

 most) three inches ami a half. It weighed 1M> pounds. 

 The colour \\as silvery i;rey ; body covered with small 



excrescences; head < iprcssed and small; each ventral 



consisted of a single ray of live feet in length, rounded at 

 the root. The dorsal tin extended along the whole back, 



