186G.] MR. J. COUCH ON AUSONIA CUVIERI. 333 



wind was strong from the east and waves rough, this fish was thrown 

 on shore alive, on a small heach near the Dodmen, on the south 

 coast of Cornwall ; and besides some bruises which it then received, 

 and wounds from the attack of a Gull, a further and more formida- 

 ble danger was encountered from a fisherman who offered a price 

 for it, that it might furnish bait for his crab-pots — an ignoble fate, 

 from which the Sturgeon has not always escaped, and which I have 

 reason to believe that other things of no small esteem to naturalists 

 have not unfrequently suffered. It happened, however, in the pre- 

 sent instance that a fisherman of greater intelligence was able, in my 

 behalf, to offer a higher price ; and I had the gratification of receiving 

 this fish in a condition in which I was able to perceive that it had 

 suffered nothing in its shape, its general condition, or colour. 



The length of this example was, in a straight line to the fork of 

 the tail, 3 feet 9 inches, which may be regarded as about the usual 

 length of this fish, since, while the specimen described by Rafinesque 

 is said to have measured 5 feet, that which is described by Nardo 

 did not exceed 2g feet, with a weight of 20 pounds, and that of 

 Rafinesque HOrotuli. Of our fish, the depth where greatest was 

 14 inches; the body and head much compressed, smooth, without 

 the slightest appearance of scales ; and where portions of the surface 

 have been described as rough, as if sprinkled with bran, nothing like 

 it appeared, except slightly on the underside near the tail ; but the 

 absence of this may. have been produced by the rough usage it had 

 received when thrown on shore by the waves. No mark of a lateral 

 line ; the gape restricted, but for its size the mouth capacious within ; 

 the jaws injured by violence, the lower a little protruded ; mystache 

 short and wide ; teeth none, either in the jaws or palate. Eye large, 

 round, low on the side of the head, in a line with the opening of 

 the mouth ; nostrils close to the front, near the upper jaw, and 

 above them a falling in of the outline ; a shallow depression running 

 backward from it along the border of the gill-covers, and continuous 

 with it a depression on the side, in which the pectoral fin may be 

 received. Gill-covers smooth, firm, shutting close, the hindmost 

 border elliptical, and not reaching to the root of the pectoral fin. 

 Above the falling in of the front the outline rises steeply in a circular 

 form, and is carried back in a moderately thin ridge to the dorsal 

 fin, which is behind the middle of the body, and opposite the anal. 

 The line of the belly is also firm and thin ; the vent far forward 

 from the anal fin and under the pectoral, where it is covered with a 

 valve which moves on a hinge. Behind the dorsal and anal fins the 

 body becomes narrow and broader ; and ou each side of this, near the 

 root of the tail, is a prominent carination, and slightly beyond this 

 a lower elevation on each side of it, resembling what is found on the 

 tail of the Mackerel. The termination of the body is a little ex- 

 panded, and at the insertion of the caudal fin slightly crenated. The 

 dorsal and anal fins have each thirteen stout rays ; the pectoral, 

 whose origin is at a foot from the front, measures 10 inches in length, 

 narrow towards the end, with twenty rays, of which the lower are 

 short and slight ; caudal fiu forked, with twelve rays above and 



