BLACKFISH. 159 



which makes it appear deeper on the back, on which the 

 dorsal fin is seated. This fin begins at four and a half inches 

 from the snout, and reaches to the distance of twelve inches 

 from it ; the rays fleshy at the base, many of them obsolete ; 

 vent six and a half inches from the lower jaw ; pectoral fins 

 pointed ; ventral fins bound down by a membrane ; tail 

 forked ; lateral line somewhat crooked at its commencement. 

 Body covered with minute scales, which when dry appear 

 curiously striated. Colour of the whole black, the fins 

 intensely so, very little lighter on the belly ; somewhat 

 bronzed at the origin of the lateral line. While employed 

 in drawing a figure, the side on which it lay changed to a fine 

 blue. 



" Another specimen measured two feet eight inches in 

 length, and weighed nearly fourteen pounds. The skin was 

 observed to be so tough, as to be stripped from the fish like 

 that of an Eel : no air-bladder was found. The taste was 

 delicious. 



" This fish, first described as British by Borlase from the 

 papers of Mr. Jago, of East Looe, has been a stumbling- 

 block to naturalists for the greater part of a century. Stew- 

 art and Turton fixed it in the genus Perca, under the name 

 of P. nigra ; and Stewart supposed it a variety of the Ruffe, 

 in which opinion he was joined by Dr. Fleming. All this, 

 however, is to be traced to an original mistake of the Cornish 

 historian, who, in copying Jago's description, represents it as 

 three-fourths of an inch broad, which would make it as slen- 

 der as a Tapefish, where he should have read three or four 

 inches, which was the exact dimensions of my specimen, — a 

 little more than three behind the head, a little less than four 

 at the commencement of the dorsal fin, and the precise mea- 

 surement of Jago's fish. The diflPerence of colour in the 

 four specimens now recorded as taken in Cornwall, (Jago"'s 



