SHINING GURNARD. < 



tinction should have remained till lately unnoticed on our 

 shores, will probably be found in the circumstance that this 

 Gurnard does not generally exceed nine inches in length, 

 which not being considered by the fishermen a marketable 

 size, the fish is not often brought on shore ; yet its flesh is 

 esteemed as sweet and delicate. 



The capture of several examples of this fish at Brixham, 

 and the announcement of the circumstance in the first volume 

 of the Magazine of Zoology and Botany, page 526, with a 

 description and figure, has not, that I am aware, elicited any 

 notice of its occurrence on other parts of our coast, yet it 

 may be presumed to be plentiful as a species ; Dr. Parnell 

 saw seven taken at once in a trawl net, and it is decidedly 

 common in most parts of the Mediterranean. Brunnich, 

 who described it in 1768, as quoted under the representation 

 of the fish, found it at Marseilles. Savigny, according to M. 

 Cuvier and Valenciennes, found it at Naples. Dr. Leach 

 sent specimens to Paris from Malta. M. Risso includes it 

 in both his volumes among the fishes taken in the environs 

 of Nice, and mentions it even as one known to Aldrovandus, 

 quoting lib. ii. cap. 58, page 279. But little appears to be 

 known of the particular habits or food of this species ; but it 

 is supposed to spawn about June, from the large size of the 

 roe in a female fish taken in that month. Dr. Parnell's spe- 

 cimens were obtained in the month of September. 



I have followed M. Cuvier and Valenciennes in including 

 references to the work of Rondelet, but with some doubt 

 whether the fish there represented and described is not rather 

 a different species of Gurnard. Our fish was probably called 

 lucerna, from the brilliant and shining longitudinal silvery 

 band which pervades the whole length of each side. I am 

 indebted to Dr. Parnell for the specimen from which the fol- 

 lowing description was taken. 



The whole length nine inches and one quarter. From 



