332 



MR. J. COUCH ON AUSONIA CUVIKRI. 



[June! '2, 



Lopez de Lima has written a book on the statistics of San Thome 

 and Principe, in which he gives a short account of the natural history 

 of the two islands ; but he never visited them. Erman received some 

 skins of birds from Bissao and Principe from a Brazilian, and ran 

 the risk of mentioning those from Bissao as having been collected in 

 Principe, and vice versa. Their notes are therefore without value. 



2. On the Occurrence on the Coast of Cornwall of an Exam- 

 ple of the Fish called Cinder's Ausonia or Luvaru. By 

 Jonathan Couch, F.L.S., C.M.Z.S., &c. 



Ausonia cuvieri, Giinther's Catalogue of Fishes in the British 

 Museum, ii. p. 414. 



Luvarus imperialis, Rafinesque, Caratteri di alcuni Nuovi Generi 

 e Specie di Animali della Sicilia, p. 22. 



Proctostegus, Nardo, Inaugural Dissertation in Prodromus Ob- 

 servationum Ichthyologise, Patavii, 1827. 



Ati.sonia cuvieri. 



This fish is now for the first time known in the British islands ; 

 and it is of the rarest occurrence even in the districts where it has 

 been met with, as may be seen from the scattered notices we have of 

 it in the writings of the Italian naturalists above referred to, as also 

 in the volume of Dr. Gunther, where we find a description, communi- 

 cated by the Rev. R. T. Lowe, of au example, supposed to be of the 

 same species, obtained in Madeira. 



The circumstances under which our example of this fish was met 

 with in Cornwall appear to include a portion of its natural history, 

 since something similar is related of one which formed the subject 

 of Nardo's observations ; and as our specimen has been added to the 

 collection in the British Museum, after it had incurred considerable 

 risk of being lost to science, it may be of some interest to relate a 

 portion of the particulars, the more especially as they will account 

 for the injury which it received at the time of its capture, and which 

 would have been greater but for the skill bestowed on its preserva- 

 tion by Mr. William Laughrin, A.L.S. 



On the last day of April in the present year (186ti), whilst the 



