504 The Zoologist— November, 1866. 



the fish was roughly gutted before I saw it, and these have disap- 

 peared under the action of the knife. Ahnost immediately behind the 

 vent there commences, as the lowest ridge of the belly, a bony process 

 well covered by the skin, which extends backwards to the commence- 

 ment of the anal fin. 



There is no ventral fin, but just within the perpendicular line of the 

 termination of the pectoral laid flat there is a fine spine, apparently 

 free, smaller and shorter than the corresponding spine in the back. 

 Two inches behind this the anal fin commences with a slout soft fin- 

 ray of eight inches long, to which the fin clings for about half its 

 length. It is followed by three or four (the last of them was damaged, 

 and may have been spinous or a long soft ray) spinous rays (of which 

 the one next the first or long ray is stouter than the first ray itself) ; 

 and after these come ten (or as may be eleven) soft fin-rays, longer in 

 their commencement than the spinous rays, and of which the eighth ray 

 from the origin of the fin is the longest, being just two inches long. 



The termination of this anal fin brings us near the tail and caudal 

 fin, which have been already described. 



In the course of preparing the fish for our Museum, it was ascer- 

 tained that the bones of it were jieculiarly soft. The back-bone was 

 large, the ribs were slight, but all the bones were of a very soft nature. 

 There were none (as 1 am informed) which could ofl"er resistance to an 

 ordinary knife. 



Unfortunately, as I have said, the fish had been gutted before I saw 

 it, and I could not therefore examine the intestines. But looking at 

 the lumpish character of the fish, its small powers of locomotion, the 

 situation of its vent, mouth and eyes, the size of the last, and the 

 ■nature of its jaws, there is not, I suppose, much doubt that it is a 

 bottom feeder on sea-weed. 



The captors told me that the stuff", which they described as like 

 gold dust, " rubbed off," but they showed some of it remaining, and 

 there is still some remains of it to be seen under the pectoral fin. It 

 appeared to my eye, unassisted, to be an extremely small scale, loosely 

 attached to the skin : it felt like fine shell-sand. The colours have faded 

 now to steel-gray on the back and belly, with a faint trace of crimson 

 under the pectoral. It is to be much regretted that we cannot preserve 

 the colours of fish in all their brilliancy, but still it is something to be 

 able to preserve them at all, especially such strangers as this one. 



Thomas Cornish. 



Penzance, Oclobei fi, 1866 



