404 Mr. M’Coy on some rare Fish 
The beautiful rosy tint of the dorsal fins first attracted my 
attention. This fish has not, I believe, been discovered in 
the British seas before; I have only seen these two speci- 
mens, one of which is in the Museum of the Royal Dublin 
Society, and the other in my own collection. The species is 
known to ichthyologists only by the descriptions of Cuvier 
and Valenciennes, who had an opportunity of seeing but one 
specimen brought by M. Bibron from Sicily, and preserved 
in spirits, when it had lost some of its characteristics, parti- 
cularly the pink colour of the dorsal fins ; a description, there- 
fore, from living specimens may not be unacceptable, parti- 
cularly to the British naturalist, to whose Fauna it is now 
added. 
Length 2 inches and 1 line; depth at base of first dorsal 4 lines : 
head depressed ; snout very short, tumid, convex; lower jaw longer 
than the upper: eyes very large, approximate ; a sulcus or groove 
runs from between the eyes to the base of the first dorsal ; cheeks 
tumid ; eyes within a third of their diameter apart; from the ante- 
rior edge of the orbit to the tip of the upper jaw, less than the dia- 
meter of the eye; first dorsal with the second ray longest, the others 
gradually decreasing. 
D. 65:10; P. 195 A. 1039.15 -- ye 
The head is one-fourth the entire length; the depth at the base of 
the pectorals one-sixth the entire length ; width at base of the pec- 
torals one-sixth the entire length, caudal fin included ; the ventral 
fin reaches as far as the posterior margin of the vent; the pectorals 
scarcely further. Colour (in spirits), body pale fulvous yellow, re- 
ticulated with black lines, something paler below: fins white, the 
anal and ventral in the adult fish being slightly margined with dusky ; 
the pectoral, ventral, anal and caudal fins without spots; the two 
dorsals, when the fish was alive, were of a very beautiful rose colour ; 
these two fins are thickly marked with large black spots, placed, for 
the most part, between the rays. On the anterior dorsal there is a 
series of six very large black spots extending from the posterior 
angle to about the middle of the anterior ray ; this row is conse- 
quently midway between the body and the margin of the fins; be- 
neath these there is another series of four smaller black spots com- 
municating at the anterior ray, and between the longest set and the 
margin of the fin there are a few straggling black spots inferior in 
size to those of the first series ; beneath these there is, anteriorly, a 
set of five or six smaller black spots; above each of the spots in the 
principal row is a small black dot. The second dorsal has nearly the 
same arrangement of the spots, but has them in greater number. 
Crenilabrus Cornubicus. Rare in Dublin bay. 
Merlangus virens. Rare in Dublin bay. 
Motella tricirrata. Very common in Roundstone bay, Con- 
nemara. 
