FILAMENTOUS GURNARD. Ptlor filamentosum. 



partially carried out, with a body covered with tubercles, deceased from confluent small 

 pox, and its surface in an advanced stage of decomposition. The head of this creature is 

 enormous in proportion to the size of its body, and the skin, which hangs loosely about it, 

 is soft, spongy, wrinkled, warty, and when touched adheres to the fingers as if covered 

 with glue. In most places where it is known, it is held in much dread, and is thought to 

 be capable of inflicting poisoned wounds by means of the sharp and slender spines with 

 which it is armed. Its colour is blackish, mottled at random with white, grey, and brown. 

 Sometimes it is almost wholly black. 



I HAVE already mentioned that the present family is rich in strange and eccentric forms, 

 the head being apparently crushed out of all shape, hung about with scraps of depending 

 skin, and armed with sharp projecting spines; the body oddly coloured, and the fins 

 developed into the most extraordinary shapes, as if intended to show the infinite variety 

 of Nature, and the contracted powers of human conjecture. There seems to be no reason 

 whatever for the singular development of the fins in several of these species, for the odd 

 shape of the head, or for the flaps of loose skin that depend therefrom like casual tatters 

 on a mendicant's professional costume. 



The FILAMENTOUS GUENAED affords another example of this apparent capriciousness 

 of grotesque formation, the shape of this very remarkable fish being better understood by a 

 figure than by verbal description alone. It is found on the coasts of the Isle of Trance. 

 It appears to feed mostly upon crustaceans and molluscs, and the bony remnants of certain 

 cuttle-fish have been found in its stomach. Its colour is greyish brown, marbled with a 

 deeper hue of the same tint, and covered with minute spots of white. 



There is another species of this genus which is coloured in a rather bold and pleasing 

 manner. This is the SPOTTED PELOE (Pelor maculatum), which derives its name from the 

 manner in which the black hue of the skin is variegated with white. In this species there 

 are three large white patches on the back, and three more on the dorsal fin. Some circular 

 white spots are scattered on the head, and a white ring encircles the eyes. The pectoral 

 fins are decorated with a bold white band, and the tail fin is marked with two white bands 

 alternating with the same number of black stripes. 



