Ari'KNDIX. 



425 



SHORT-FINNED TUNNY. 



Thynnns brachypterus, 



it u 



Pelamys vera, 



CUVIER. 



Gunther; Catalogue Br. Museum, 

 vol. ii, p. 363. 



Rondeletius ; p. 245; but he supposes 

 it an early condition of the Tuuny ; 

 and it is to be observed that it is 

 not recognised by Dr. Gulia, in his 

 "Tentamen, or Reportorio of the 

 Fishes of Malta," at least as being 

 distinct from the Thynnus Brevi- 

 pinnis of the same author. 



This fish is a native of the Mediterranean, where perhaps it 

 is equally common with the Tunny, with which it appears to 

 have heen confounded until distinguished by the discriminating 

 examination of Baron Cuvier. But it appears to be less a 

 wanderer into the ocean than that fish, and there is no record 

 of its having been caught in the British seas until the summer 

 of the present year, 1865; when an example was discovered 

 among the numbers of small Mackarel taken near Mevagissey, 

 in Cornwall, in the drift-nets, and sent to me by Mr. Matthias 

 Dunn, an intelligent fisherman of that place. This first example 

 was obtained on the 18th. of August, and it is worthy of notice 

 that within a week afterwards a specimen was taken in the 

 same manner by a fisherman of Polperro; and in the first week 

 in September three other examples were sent to me from 

 Mevagissey; thus amounting to five examples in the course of 

 a month within a limited extent of our south coast; which 

 circumstance appears to shew that they have been bred at no 

 great distance from our shores. The size of these examples also 

 goes far to prove the same fact, as the first measured only six 

 inches from the snout to the fork of the tail, and the three 

 last had only reached the length of eight inches. Our figure 

 VOL. IV. 3 1 



