220 GATTORUGINR. 



and its range of action is usually confined to the neighbourhood 

 of rocks and stones not far from land; where it keeps close to 

 the bottom at the depth of a few fathoms. It does not often 

 take a bait, but this appears to arise from the fact that the 

 ground it haunts is rarely fished over except by those whose 

 pursuit is for crabs and lobsters; and in their pots it is so 

 commonly taken, that in the season of this fishery it not unfre- 

 quently happens a few examples are drawn up in every one. 

 A fisherman informed me that he has thus caught as many 

 as fifty in a day. They are not thought of as food, although, 

 according to Lacepede, they are acceptable for the table; but 

 our fishermen are accustomed to use a degree of cruelty, by 

 thrusting their ordinary skewer through the gills of the fish 

 whilst yet alive, and so hanging it up in the pot for bait. It 

 will continue alive in this state for two or three days, if not 

 before devoured by the captive crab or lobster; to which it is 

 believed that they are a w^elcome morsel. Its own food appears 

 to be indiscriminate, but perhaps with a preference for the 

 smaller crustaceans; but various sorts of bivalve shells and 

 portions of star-fishes — the common jointed coralline and brown 

 sea-weeds have been found in their stomachs. There cannot be 

 a doubt also that they are enticed to enter the fatal crab-jjots 

 by an appetite for the fishy bait contained within them. 



About the end of May they are found large with roe, the 

 grains of which are some of them a mulberry and others a lead- 

 colour. Numbers of young ones of very small size are also 

 found at the same season. 



It appears to be the habit of this fish, as it is of the Common 

 Shanny presently to be described, and the Crested or Montagu's 

 Shanny, to employ their pectoral and ventral fins as organs of 

 feeling; and also in the place of hands or feet in crawling among 

 the rocks with but little action of the other parts of the body. 

 For this purpose these organs are well supplied with nerves and 

 accompanying blood-vessels; and especially there is well developed 

 a series which, as analogous to those possessed by animals of a 

 higher order in the scale of existence, an anatomist would 

 denominate the axillary plexus; which unite together and again 

 divide as in something of a net-work, some of the branches 

 penetrating through the bones of the pectoral fins, that both 

 sides may be sufficiently endued with sense; the separate rays 



