244 



GOBIOIU.E. 



day, forgetting to refresh them with clean water, they died 

 to the last fish. 



While they were very young and transparent, they made 

 excellent objects for the microscope, for viewing the circula- 

 tion of the blood. 



The females of this species appear to produce their young 

 more or less grown according to their own size. 



Mr. Neill says, " though not a delicate morsel, this fish 

 is often brought to the Edinburgh market." In the month 

 of February 1807, this gentleman saw a female fifteen inches 

 long in the fish-market, from which several dozens of young 

 escaped alive : these fry were from four to five inches long. 

 In a female of seven inches, obtained by myself on the 

 Kentish coast, full of young, these, when excluded, were only 

 one inch and a half long ; but such was the perfection of the 

 internal organization of this female, that after the specimen 

 had been kept for months in diluted spirit of wine, on 

 making slight pressure upon the abdomen, the young were 

 excluded one after another, and invariably with the head 

 first. 



This viviparous species appears to be more common on 

 our east and north-east coast than in the south. Montagu 

 considered it a scarce fish in Devonshire, only obtaining 

 a single specimen in several years. As a species its earliest 

 describer was Schonevelde, whose name and discoveries have 

 been previously referred to. Sir Robert Sibbald first no- 

 ticed it in Scotland. It occurs on the Norfolk and York- 

 shire coasts, in Berwick bay, in the Forth, and on the coasts 

 of Norway and Sweden, where, hiding itself, as it does on 

 our own shore, under sea-weed, which is called tang, it has 

 acquired the name of Tanglake. 



The whole length of the specimen described was seven 

 inches ; the length of the head, as compared with the whole 



