BLACK-MOUTHED DO(i-riSH. 375 



CHONDROPTERYGIl. SQUALID^. 



THE BLACK-MOUTHED DOG-FISH. 



EYED DOG-FISH, Cornwall. 



Scyllium melanostomum, Fauna Italica of Prince Musignano. 



,, ,, 'Eyed Dog-fish, Couch's MS. 



Squalus melastomus, Le Squale Melastome, Blainville, Faun Franf. p. 75. 



The following account of this species, new to the British 

 catalogue, is from the MS. of Mr. Couch, who is probably 

 the only English naturalist into whose hands it has fallen, 



" The specimen from which my description has been 

 taken was caught on a line by a fisherman of Polperro on the 

 8th February 1834. Its length was twenty-five inches 

 and three-quarters, and seven inches round Avhere stoutest. 

 The head flat on the top, rather wide posteriorly ; snout 

 thin, protruded one inch and three-quarters from the ante- 

 rior angle of the eye ; nostrils one inch and a quarter from 

 the snout, double, one beneath linear, the other on the mar- 

 gin, the hinder edge prominent, a depression in the head im- 

 mediately above it ; eye rather large, oval, close behind it a 

 moderately sized temporal orifice; mouth one inch and three- 

 quarters wide ; teeth numerous, small, sharp, at each side of 

 the base of each tooth a small sharp process ; spiracles five, 



