THE DORADO. 



Brilliant appearance. 



Another fish of this species was taken near 

 Newcastle in 1767, and Mr. Harrison has de- 

 scribed it in the British Zoology. A third, 

 weighing an hundred and forty pounds, was 

 caught at Brixham, in Torbay, in J772. A dried 

 specimen of the opah is preserved in the British 

 Museum. It is three feet five inches in length, 

 and measures one foot seven inches where 

 broadest. 



The opah is one of the most beautiful of the 

 inhabitants of the deep ; its color being a trans- 

 parent scarlet, burnished over with gold, and 

 variegated with oblong silver spots, of various 

 sizes. The fins are likewise of the same beautiful 

 scarlet color as the body, so that the appearance 

 of this fish is uncommonly brilliant. 



This fish is not mentioned by Linnaeus or 

 Willoughby, from which it may be presumed to 

 be a rare fish every where. Only four or five of 

 this species have ever been taken on the English 

 ahores. Pennant describes the flesh as resemblin- 

 beef in taste and appearance, and says, that the 

 breast consisted of a sharp bone, similar in form 

 to the keel of a ship. 



THE DORADO 



IS one of the most beautiful, most active, and 

 most voracious of the spinous kind ; they are in 

 a state of continual warfare, always employed 



