HISTOKY OF THE FISHES OF MASSACHUSETT 





237 



O 



he referred the species to the genus Scymnus, which classification I accepted in 



my Synopsis 



A specimen of this species, sixteen feet in length, was taken on the coast of Ma 



about eighty miles east of Portland, in August. 1846 



After being skinned and stufft 



it was seen and described by William Wood, M. D., of Portland 



new, and called it Leiodon echinatum 



He supposed it to 1) 



His description appeared in the second 



of the "Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History." In the month of Jan 

 uary, 1848, Capt. N. E. Atwood brought me, from Provincetown, a specimen he had taker 

 the day previous while fishing for cod. I at once described it and had it figured, suppo* 



while 



be a new species. The accompanying description and figure 



sent. When, however, it had been stuffed and dried, it proved to be Les 



species ; its aspect being materially changed by the process of being skinned and preserved 



Another specimen was caught at Nahant, in November. 1848 



It was drawn upon the 



beach where it remained alive during the night. At its death it was brought to the city for 



A third was harpooned at Provincetown in April, 1849, at Long Point, fifteen 



exhibition 



feet long j and still a fourth was taken on the 24th of April, the same year, at Province- 

 town, near the Long Point lighthouse. These are the only instances with which 1 am ac- 

 quainted of its capture. I have learned from conversation with an intelligent fisherman, 

 however, that individuals are captured every winter, and that it is more numerous than 

 is generally supposed. Sometimes it is very large — measuring twenty feet in length, 

 and weighing two tons or more, on these the cutaneous spines attain a great size. In the 



v 



ity of Provincetown, its most common resort is near Race Point, in a gully famous 



for halibut and star-fish 



The liver furnishes five or six gallons of oil 



in one case 



single half lobe filled a flour barrel, and yielded fifteen gallons of oil. It is called by the 

 fishermen gurry or ground shark, from its feeding on the offal which is thrown overboard 

 from the smacks. It is sometimes attracted, like other species of sharks, by the carcasses 

 of whales killed in Massachusetts Bay. 

 There is a description of a species of Scymnus, accompanied by a figure by Valen- 



ciennes in the " Nouvelles Annalles du Museum," torn, i, 1832, which he 



mi crop- 



terus. The fish was taken near the mouth of the Seine. He considered it distinct from 



the dried specimen of Lesueur. 

 the descriptions of the recent fish 

 Massachusetts, Lesueur, Storer. 



There is a very 



resemblance, however, betw 



