Dr. Bancroft on Jamaican Fishes, <^c. 409 



Art. LVI. Account of several Fishes and other Animals of 

 Jainaica. By E. N. Bancroft, M. D. In a Letter to 

 the Editor. 



Kingston, Jamaica, 2Ath July, 1830. 

 Dear Sir, 



I HAVE not been able to acknowledge sooner the favour of your letter 

 of the 1 7th of last November. I was indeed partly induced to delay my 

 answer from the expectation you had therein held out to me of a farther 

 communication with such portions of the Zoological Journal as relate to 

 the objects I sent to you twelve months ago ; but these I have not yet 

 had the satisfaction of receiving. 



This letter will, I believe, be forwarded by the packet, which is to sail 

 on the 3d of next month; and in it I shall give )ou some account of the 

 contents of several packages which I proposed to send you by the ship 

 New Prospect, that will sail for London at the end of this month. The 

 first package to be mentioned is a cask with compressed sides (as it may 

 to you be termed) called a breaker, a form which I preferred on account 

 of one of the Fishes to be sent in it, a Cephalopterus hitherto, I believe, 

 unknown. 



I have to regret that this specimen in particular, and some others of 

 the Fishes, are not quite in their natural colours. I had directed the 

 first to be put into strong brine, and this it seems was done by a servant 

 in a large copper boiler, there being no other vessel at hand to contain 

 a fish of its size and shape, and the brine was occasionally renewed to 

 prevent putrefaction ; but I had the mortification to find very lately, when 

 I had the fish taken out to be put into the breaker, that some portion of 

 its surface had acquired a green colour from the copper, an alteration I 

 had not been previously informed of. It appears that the servants were 

 able to remove some part of the green colour ; but I was afraid of their 

 injuring the skin if they continued to rub it ; and although I hesitated for 

 some time about sending this specimen, yet I thought it best to send it in 



