4256 The Zoologist — December, 1874. 



with barnacles, and which had, therefore, been a long time in the 

 water. On getting it on board it turned out to be a box or 

 packing-case, of which four sides and the bottom (it had been 

 floating bottom up) were perfect, whilst the top had one board out 

 of three torn off. In this box was found the fish. I afterwards 

 found in its stomach remains of barnacles ; and it is possible at 

 least that the fish, finding its quarters comfortable and its food 

 close at hand, may have floated witli the box from the tropics 

 along the currents which wash our western shores. When taken 

 it was alive and healthy : it was kept alive for many hours in the 

 trawler's big tub, but was dead when I saw it on Saturday last. 



It is of the family Squanunipennes (scale-rayed, the only member 

 of which hitherto noted as British is, I believe, Ray's bream), but 

 of its precise genus and species I must speak presently. It is 

 fourteen inches and six-eighlhs long over all. The bases of the 

 dorsal, anal and caudal fins are covered with scales half-way up 

 the fin-rays, and there is consequently no proper fork at the tail, 

 nor indeed any perceptible origin to the caudal-fin. The body 

 fades away into it. The greatest depth of the fish is at the origin 

 of the dorsal, four inches and four-eighths. Its greatest thickness 

 is at the origin of the pectoral, one inch and seven-eighths. The 

 head is rounded in a continuous curve from over the top of the 

 operculum right down to the back of the gape of the upper jaw. 

 Tlie lower jaw shuts up to the upper obliquely, and is, when the 

 mouth is shut, the shorter of the two, although when the mouth is 

 open it looks the longer. There is in each jaw a single row of 

 small distinct recurved teeth, all much of the same size ; the palate 

 is particularly smooth; the tongue free and smooth; the nose is 

 very broad and blunt; the eye is over the end of the gape, large, 

 round and prominent, just over half an inch in diameter, irides 

 golden yellow ; from the eye runs a gristle-white band straight 

 forward to the nostrils, which are bilobed and conspicuous, the 

 hinder one being the larger. The preoperculum forms a semi- 

 acute curve at its lower extremity, and is slightly serrated along 

 the curve and lower edge. The operculum ends in a soft mem- 

 brane, and forms a conspicuous membranous point projecting 

 backwards over the base of the pectorals. The pectorals are 

 pointed, extend to under the origin of the dorsal, and contain 

 twenty-three rays, all soft : there is a small dark spot at the upper 

 base of them. The origin of the venlrals, which are connected 



