DORONICUM DORY. 



tricts of Europe, being- found upon the Alps, &c. 

 The type is the Papilio Apollo of Linnaeus, which, 

 like most of the species, is of a white colour, with four 

 eye-like spots with red and black circles. 



DORONICUM (Linnaeus). A genus of herbs, 

 chiefly European, belonging to Syngcnesia superflua, 

 and to the natural order Composites. These plants 

 grow freely in any garden soil, and are easily in- 

 creased by division : they flower early in the spring. 

 Leopard's Bane is their English name. 



DORSTENIA (Linnaeus). A genus of plants, 

 remarkable for their manner of flowering. Linnsean 

 class and order Tetrandfia Monogynia, and natural 

 order Urticecc. Generic character : receptacle fleshy, 

 somewhat concave, quadrangular or roundish, bearing 

 both male and female flowers. Perianthe none ; 

 stamens mixed with styles ; anthers two-celled ; styles 

 laterally bifid ; seeds naked, in cavities of receptacle. 

 This plant is cultivated in the stove more as a vege- 

 table curiosity than for its beauty, for neither its 

 flower or foliage can be called handsome. It is 

 easily increased by dividing the root or by seed. 



p'ORTHESIA (Bosc). A genus of small but 

 curious insects, nearly allied to the COCCID^E, which 

 see. The species are found upon plants, the males 

 are adorned with a long and pencil-like tail, and the 

 females are covered with waxen scales of various 

 forms, which give them a very remarkable appear- 

 ance. They are of small size. 



DORY, DOREE, or " JOHN DORY," Zeus faber. 

 A celebrated species of fish belonging to the spinous 

 finned order, the mackerel family, and the genus 

 Zem; but because it has been in all ages a fish of 

 some celebrity, we have deemed it necessary to give 

 a short account of it under its common English name. 

 " John Dory," its usual name among the fishermen, 

 has no connexion with the name John any more than 

 anchovy has with the name Anne, though every one 

 must be aware of the punning allusion to eating dory 

 with anchovy sauce, as being " the legitimate mar- 

 riage of John Dory and Anne Chovy." 



This fish was known to the Greeks and to the 

 Romans, and the former have left evidence of the 

 estimation in which they held it, in having named it 

 after Zeus or Jupiter, the captain-general of the gods. 

 Nor are we without evidence of the esteem in which 

 this fish was held by the monastic epicures of the 

 middle ages, for it was one of those fishes which they 

 coupled, by means of legendary fables, with the sacred 

 name of the founder of Christianity. Whenever we 

 find any fish or other animal thus connected, we may 

 always make certain that such fish or animal is a 

 bonne bouche, for the very same reason that the term 

 Lachrymce Christi has been applied to the most luscious 

 production of the vine. Thus, though those fables 

 are, to say the best of them, specially absurd in their 

 original application, they all afford some useful lesson 

 in the way of good eating, and there is no reason why 

 we should throw away this because it is connected 

 with an absurd fable. The ocellated spots, which 

 are so conspicuous in the dory, are like those less 

 conspicuous ones on the haddock, the marks left by 

 the finger and thumb of St. Peter, as he held the fish 

 m the one hand, and took the tribute money out of its 

 mouth with the other. It does uot appear that the 

 inventors of this fable, who no doubt had a view to 

 the ample supply of these half-canonised fishes, had 

 much regard to the apostle's character for cleanliness ; 

 for, if they had reflected a little, they must have per- 



325 



ceived how shockingly dirty the thumb and finder 

 must have been in order to stain fishes with indelible 

 black spots down to perhaps the thousandth genera- 

 tion, and as much longer as this species may tenant 

 the sea. As the one piece of tribute rnonev could 

 not well be taken out of the mouths of two fishes, 

 neither of which is, we believe, to be found in any of 

 the salt lakes of Judea, which are the only seas alluded 

 to in the Gospels, therefore the dory gets another chance 

 of having received these spots as a mark of such saint- 

 ship as credulity might suppose to belong to a fish. 

 It is said that St. Christopher, while wading through 

 an arm of the sea with our Saviour on his back, caught 

 a dory, and impressed the spots witii his thumb and 

 finger, which is of course as ridiculous as the former 

 story, and meant to answer exactly the same purpose. 

 Our common name John Dory is clearly nothing 

 more than a corrupt pronunciation of the French term 

 for the colour of the lighter parts of the fish, which is 

 yellow with metallic reflections, when the fish is alive, 

 and therefore very properly styled jaune doree, or 

 gold and yellow. 



We shall avail ourselves of Mr. Yarrell's very ex- 

 cellent and accurate description of this fish in his 

 work on the history of British fishes ; and we do this 

 the more readily, that it gives us an opportunity of 

 saying that this work is one of the few which tend to 

 confer the highest honour upon the author, and ren- 

 der the greatest assistance to the public in the real 

 knowledge of the subject. " The body of the dory," 

 says Mr. Yarrell, " is oval, very much compressed ; 

 the head large ; the mouth capable of great protrusion, 

 so much so, that from the point of the lower jaw, 

 when extended, to the posterior angle of the opercu- 

 lum is as long as from that angle to the base of 'the 

 caudal rays. The length of the head when the mouth 

 is not projected is nearly as long as the body is in 

 depth. The mouth large ; the teeth small and nu- 

 merous, placed in a single row in each jaw, and curv- 

 ing inwards ; the eyes large, situated laterally and 

 high up on the head ; irides yellow ; a spine behind 

 and over each orbit, about half way between the eye 

 and the first ray of the spinous portion of the dorsal 

 fin ; the spines of the first dorsal fin very long, the 

 longest half as long as the body is deep ; the mem- 

 brane between the spines ending in a filament three 

 times as long as the rays. The base of the second 

 dorsal fin about as long as that of the first ; the rays 

 flexible, and only half as high as those of the first ; 

 the pectoral fin small and short, ending on a line with 

 the anterior edge of the dark spot on the side ; the 

 ventrals very long and slender ; arising in advance of 

 the pectorals, the rays reaching as far back as the first 

 flexible ray of the anal ; the first spinous ray of the 

 anal fin is on a line with the posterior edge of the 

 dark spot, and with the sixth spinous ray of the dorsal ; 

 the flexible portion commences and ends nearly on 

 the same planes as the flexible dorsal. The tail is 

 narrow, long, and slender ; the lateral line, advancing 

 at first straight, afterwards rises in an elevated arch 

 over the dark spot, which is placed at about the 

 diameter of its own breadth behind the posterior angle 

 of the operculum. A row of spiny scales pointing 

 backwards are ranged along the base of the dorsal 

 and anal fins on both sides. 



" The prevailing colour of the body is an olive 

 brown, tinged with yellow, and reflecting in different 

 lights, blue, gold, and white ; when the living fish, 

 just taken from the net, is held in the hand, varying 



