206 GADID^. 



Mr. Couch has favoured me with a drawing and a descrip- 

 tion of a specimen taken in Cornwall. The description is 

 already given by Dr. Fleming, and the drawing has sup- 

 plied the means of giving the representation at the head 

 of this article. Dr. Johnston has also furnished me with 

 a coloured drawing, a penciled sketch, and a description. 

 A copy of the sketch, carefully reduced in size, forms the 

 vignette at the end. These two compared together, these 

 again compared with the double representations in the last 

 two octavo editions of Pennant's British Zoology, and each 

 with the figure of Jago's fish in Ray's Synopsis, will, I 

 think, leave little doubt that all are intended to represent 

 the same fish. 



Dr. Johnston's description is as follows : — 



" The comparison implied in the name Tadpole Fish is 

 very expressive of its general form and colour ; for Avhen 

 alive it was entirely black, and the anterior parts are large 

 and tumid, while the hinder are much compressed. The 

 extreme length of our Berwickshire specimen was eleven 

 inches ; and its greatest circumference, which is immediately 

 before the pectoral fins, was seven inches, whence it tapered 

 rapidly to the tail. The head is very large, obtuse, and 

 flattened on the crown, where there is a slight depression 

 between the eyes, which are an inch distant from each other, 

 lateral, prominent, round, and black. The mouth is wide ; 

 and under the chin there is a small conical barb or feeler : 

 the lips are rounded and white ; the inferior jaw armed with 

 two close rows of sharp teeth, and the upper, which is move- 

 able, with similar teeth, but more numerous, and not dis- 

 tinctly rowed. On the palate, behind the jaw, there is a 

 semilunar cartilaginous prominence or tubercle roughened 

 with small teeth ; and the wide entrance into the oesophagus 

 is guarded with four similar tubercles, but of a roundish 



