156 ADDITIONS TO THE FAUNA OF CORNWALL. 



statement, to dazzle the eyes of spectators. Unfortunately it was 

 injured in handling ; but its specific characters remain, and this 

 rare example of a little known native of Ocean's depths, is in 

 course of being preserved by Mr. William Laughrin, A.L.S., whose 

 skill in that department of science, and whose fine collection of 

 preserved fishes and crustaceans, are well known. 



By courteous permission from the Committee of Publications 

 of The Zoological Society of London, we are enabled to lay before 

 our readers the following particulars communicated by Mr. Jona- 

 than Couch to that Society's Journal ; and also some remarks, by 

 Dr. Albert Giinther, on the skeleton of Ausonia Cuvieri, together 

 with the illustrative engraving. 



Mr. Couch's description of this remarkable fish is as follows :— 



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

 Museum, ii, p. 414. 



Luvarus imperialis, Kafinesque, Caratteri di alcuni Nuovi Generi 

 6 Specie di Animali della Sicilia, p. 22. 



Prodostegus, Nardo, Inaugural Dissertation in Prodromus Ob- 

 servationum Ichthyologise, Patavii, 1827. 



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 

 Eafinesque is said to have measured 5 feet, that which is described 

 by Nardo did not exceed 2|- feet, with a weight of 20 pounds, 

 and that of Rafinesque 110 rotoli. Of our fish, the depth Avhere 

 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 under- 

 side 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 widej 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 



