274 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



It was apparently stunned by the collision. A boat was lowered, and the 

 fish was secured. It turned out to be gorged to repletion with Hake and 

 Mackerel, and it naturally occurs to me that this species of fish may have 

 a habit of gorging itself, which induces its habit of lazily floating on the 

 surface of the sea until its digestive organs have done their work and 

 restored its energies. The descriptions of the fish given by Yarrell and 

 Couch are in the main correct. I may add that the teeth of this specimen 

 were conical and recurved, about half an inch long in the longest, separated 

 from each other, having no serration on their edges, and being in a double 

 row throughout the jaws, except that in the immediate front of the lower 

 jaw they lay in three rows : but as this was a small specimen, and therefore 

 probably immature, I attribute nothing distinctive to this note of the 

 dentition. I could not find that the teeth were (as is usual in the other 

 members of the Shark family) in any degree retractile. This fish is 

 clearly distinguishable from the Basking Shark of Pennant, of which I have 

 a specimen, and which I have already described in these pages. — Thomas 

 CouNisn (Penzance). 



Greater Forked-beard on the Banfifshire Coast. — A very good and 

 entire specimen of this fish, Phycis furcatus, was taken at Banff by a 

 trawler during the last week in May. It is said to be a scarce species 

 generally in Britain, and would seem to be remarkably so with us, to judge 

 from the fact that this is only the third specimen, so far as I am aware, 

 which has been captured in the Moray Firth during the last sixty years or 

 thereabouts. The fishermen did not know what it was, and had it not 

 been for the long slender filaments depending from the breast — erroneously 

 called fins — which attracted their attention, it would in all probability have 

 been passed over as a Common Hake.— Thomas Edwakd (Banff). 



M o L L u § c A. 



Lutraria oblouga in Jersey. — During a recent visit to Jersey I was 

 favoured with an extra good spring tide, which enabled me to walk over 

 part of the sea-bed three miles from high-water mark. Amongst many rare 

 Mollusca I obtained a number of living specimens of Lutraria ohlonrfa and 

 L. ehjptica ; their burrows were revealed by a small key-hole-like bole in 

 the sand banks, from which was ejected, on alarm, a small jet of water. 

 By rapidly probing up the wet sand, the animal was invariably found from 

 six to nine inches below the surface. — Edward Lovett (Addiscombe, 

 Croydon). 



CRUSTACEA. 



Large Crayfish.- During- a recent visit to Jersey I made a journey to 

 Sark, and saw there the finest specimen of I'alhmrus quadriconiis I have 

 ever seen. The dimensions were as follows : — Total length, from tip of 

 anteuuiB to tip of tail, 4 ft. 1 in. ; f^reatest giith, 1 ft. 4 in. ; spread of tail, 



