31^ MUE^NID^. 



of it in the Wernerian Memoirs, as quoted. More than 

 twenty specimens have within a few years been taken at dif- 

 ferent parts of the coast of England, Wales, and Ireland. 

 Bythe kindness of Mr. Couch, I possess three examples that 

 were taken in Cornwall ; and from Mr. William Thompson, 

 of Belfast, we learn that five or six specimens have been ob- 

 tained by him and his collecting friends. 



There is also an interesting account of this fish, with a good 

 figure, in the sixth volume of Mr. Loudon's Magazine of 

 Natural History, page 330, by H. V. Deere, Esq. who 

 states that his specimen, to all appearance dead, was brought 

 to him by a Devonshire fisherman, who had carried it in his 

 pocket, wrapped in brown paper, for three hours. After 

 this gentleman had held the fish in his hand for about a 

 minute, examining it, symptoms of life appeared, and then 

 the little animal was placed in a tumbler of salt and water, 

 where it survived its incarceration in brown paper for several 

 hours. Its appearance is described as most pleasing, from 

 its semitransparent and silvery hue, its prominent eye, and 

 graceful motions. It is usually found among seaweed. 



I carefully dissected off the whole of one side from one of 

 the three specimens sent me by Mr. Couch, laying bare the 

 vertebral column and the intestinal canal. The bones form- 

 ing the vertebrse have no spinous processes whatever, either 

 superior or inferior ; the angles of the ascending and de- 

 scending oblique indented striae, visible on the external sur- 

 face of the skin, mark the points of union of the different 

 vertebrse ; the oblique muscles between the striae are attached 

 to the bodies of the bones forming the column ; the margin 

 all round each vertebral bone is opaque, but the centre or 

 body of each is transparent. 



The intestine is a single straight canal of small calibre, 

 reaching from the head to the vent ; after passing from the 



