222 THE ZOOLOGIS'r. 
on the back and sides, gradually shaded off to a pearly white on the under 
parts. They are covered with minute but brilliantly sparkling pearl-like 
scales. I have tried to preserve two of them by covering them with 
glycerine, but their beauty is fast disappearing. I have had some cooked 
like soles, and find them delicious ; the flesh is of a creamy whiteness and 
of a delicate flavour, so delicate that butter or any sauce would spoil them. 
—W. Penney (Poole, Dorset). 
[This fish obtains its name from the shape of its snout, which is turned 
up, and capable of being considerably protruded. Couch, who gives a good 
description and figure of it in his ‘ Fishes of the British Islands’ (vol. ii., 
p. 142), says, “It is not easy to imagine a more skilfully-constructed 
contrivance than this of the Boar-fish’s mouth for sudden motion in the 
capture of the very small but nimble creatures on which it feeds.” —Ev.] 
“Tue Fentanp’—Isicii. Our reviewer suggested (supra, pp. 71, 72) 
that, by this somewhat uncommon word, the Monk of Ely meant “salmon.” 
That such is the case is the more likely since we have found that 
Ranulphus Higden, who died about 1360, when writing (‘ Polychronicon,’ 
Rolls Ed. ii., pp. 12, 13) of the wealth of this country in fresh-water fish, 
says, “Isicio potissime abundat et anguilla”; a passage which was Englished 
by John of Trevisa, between 1357 and 1387, “ Ther is grete plente of small 
fische, of samon, and of elys.” It is true that an unknown writer of the 
fifteenth century (MS. Harl. 2261) translates the passage, “‘ habundante in 
waters fulle of fische, specially of pyke and ele”; but John of Trevisa must 
be held a better interpreter of his contemporary than his successor of a 
hundred years later, who merely adopts the subsequently prevalent view 
that isicius and esoa were cognate words. It must be remarked, however, 
that our reviewer's supposition that isicit in the ‘ Liber Eliensis’ was a 
corruption of leawas, or some such word, is not hereby strengthened.— Ep. 
PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 
Linnean Soctery or Lonpon. 
April 3, 1879.—Witi1am CarrutTuers, Esq., F.R.S., Vice-President, 
in the chair. 
Mr. Ferdinand Coles (Stoke Newington), Mr. W. A. Forbes (West 
Wickham, Kent), and Dr. N. S. Whitney (Westminster), were elected 
Fellows of the Society. 
Three botanical communications were read and discussed :—* Myrrh- 
bearing Plants,” by Dr. H. Trimen; “Account of a Peat Flood in the 
Falklands,” by Mr. A. Bailey (communicated by W. T. Thiselton Dyer); 
and “ Notes on Moquilea,” by Mr. John Miers.—J. Murie. 
