Ogilby — On some Irish Fishes. 513 



sonal experience, not from hearsay, as the text, p. 82, would lead 

 one to believe ; but in all the cases in which I caught them thus , 

 the sun had been some time set, so that it was difficult at a glance to 

 distinguish between this and the young coalfish for which I was 

 angling. It is known at Portrush by the suggestive name of 

 "brute." On our coast the usual remedy applied to cure its 

 wound is to prick the puncture until it bleeds freely, and while 

 the blood is flowing immerse the affected part in spirits of turpen- 

 tine or whiskey. I have been pricked several times, but I never 

 felt any inconvenience, so much depends on the state of health of 

 the sufferer. So numerous are they sometimes that I took thirty- 

 five, one of which was 6|- inches long, during two hours' shrimping 

 by night, in the ladies' bathing- place, Portrush. 



Scomber scomber. — Common at Portrush, from July to Septem- 

 ber inclusive. Owing probably to some local cause, they appear 

 earlier and in larger numbers at Ballintoy to the eastward, and 

 Magilligan to the westward. Numbers of small mackerel were 

 taken on the Donegal and Dublin coast during December, 1882. 



1 have never previously remarked them at that season. Young 

 fry, up to 4 inches long, are caught at Portrush in August. 



\_8co'mber colias. — In the Dublin Nat. Hist. Soc. Proc., vol. ii. 

 p. 106, Andrews records one sent to him, but without stating from 

 whence it came. In Miss Cusack's Kerry he gives the locality as 

 " off Tearaght Island, county of Kerry," but the fish does not 

 seem to have been satisfactorily identified]. 



Orcynus thynnus. — In the record of this species, p. 97, two 

 distinct occurrences seem to have been confused together. Three 

 Irish examples are now authenticated as follows : — (1) Dr. Jacob's, 

 caught off Dublin Bay about the year 1828, and measuring about 



2 feet; (2) AVilliam Thompson's, which came ashore living, in 

 Ballyholme Bay, near Bangor, county of Down, in the autumn 

 of 1841 ; it measured 8 feet 3 inches long, 5 feet 4 inches in girth, 

 and weighed fully 300 lbs. ; (3) my own, hitherto unrecorded. This 

 example was obtained at Portrush on the 1st September, 1878 : its 

 total length was 8 feet; girth 5 feet 1 inch; length of head to 

 total length as 1 to 4 ; weight computed at as between 3 and 4 

 ewts. Its stomach contained a number of mackerel in different 

 stages of digestion, and about a quart of thick brownish-red fluid 

 matter. We had been for some time aware of the presence of 



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