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SCOMBERID.E. 



one at Brixham. Since that time three others have been 

 obtained, one of which is now preserved in the British Mu- 

 seum, and from that example the representation above was 

 drawn and engraved. A specimen taken in the Clyde some 

 years since is now preserved in the Andersonian Museum at 

 Glasgow. It has also appeared still farther north, since 

 Nilsson includes it in his Prodromus of the Fishes of Scan- 

 dinavia. 



Professor Reinhardt has recorded that within the last 

 thirty years three examples have been taken on the coast of 

 Denmark ; and, what is remarkable, they were all caught very 

 near the same spot. 



This fish was first described by Dr. Mortimer, in the 

 Philosophical Transactions, from a specimen taken at Leith 

 in the year 1750 : the preserved fish was exhibited at a 

 meeting of the Royal Society. To his account of it Dr. 

 Mortimer has added " that the Prince of Anamaboo, a coun- 

 try on the west coast of Africa, being then in England, 

 recognised the fish immediately as a species common on that 

 coast, which the natives called Opah, and said it was good 

 to eat." 



Little or nothing is ascertained of the habits of this fish : 

 one exhibited at Dieppe was unknown to the oldest fish- 

 ermen there. The specimen before referred to as taken at 

 Brixham, measured four feet six inches in length, and weigh- 

 ed one hundred and forty pounds. 



By the evidence of Chinese drawings, it would appear 

 that the Opah is also a native of the eastern seas ; and it is 

 certainly not a little singular, as observed by Mr, Couch, 

 that by a people so distant and secluded as the Japanese, 

 a fish, considered originally as belonging to the same genus 

 as the Doree, should also be regarded as devoted to the 

 Deity, and the only one that is so. The Opah is by them 



