172 MALACOPTEKYGII. 



about 85 on the lateral line ; 10 ? from it to the origin of the dorsal fin ; and 12 ? 

 from it to the ventral profile : the scales not being always precisely defined, the 

 numbers cannot be accurately determined. 



Colour (in spirits), bluish black along the back, thence olive to the lateral 

 line, where it becomes somewhat silvery, and beneath it of a bright silver to 

 near the base, where a gloss appears as if when recent it had been tinged with 

 pink ; belly opake white, slightly tinged with silver anteriorly, opercula bright 

 silver, irides silvery, bounded by a blackish line above and beneath. 



Although the expression of "common" be at variance with what I could 

 learn of the history of this species, it is probably in allusion to it that Sir Wm. 

 Jardine remarked, in a letter to me in November, 1836, that he had heard of a 

 fish called the " fresh-water herring" being common m Lough Derg. 



All the Coregoni hitherto recorded as British are lacustrine species, thus ren- 

 dering the addition to the Fauna of the present one, which frequents the river 

 Shannon, more than ordinarily interesting. That it migrates to the sea, as do 

 others of the genus, both in this and the western hemisphere, is by no means 

 improbable ; but as yet, instead of proof of the fact, we have simply the con- 

 jecture of fishermen, \^ho would not be unlikely to draw such an inference from 

 the mere circumstance of capturing it at the same time with eels, which they 

 know to be on their migration seawards.*— ^H«a^s Nat. Hist. vol. ii. 



Coregonus clupeoides, Nilss. ? 



By the continued kind attention of the Rev. C. Mayne (Vicar-general of 

 Cashel) a second specunen of this fish, taken in the river Shannon near Killa- 

 loe, was forwarded to m» on the 9th of November last. This individual, being 

 quite perfect, enables me now to supply a figure of the species, and to off'er 

 some further remarks upon it. On comparing it in every character with my de- 

 scription of the individual first obtained (' Annals ' for Dec. p. 2G7), which was 

 divested of its scales, and injured in some of the fins, 1 find very few additional 

 observations to be requisite. Its length is 4| inches, depth 1U| lines; nimiber 

 of scales on lateral line, and from it to doi'sal and ventral profile, as described in 

 last, judging in that instance from their impressions merely ; the scales rounded 



* Coregonus PoUan, Thomp. A few observations on the pollan, the only 

 other species of Coregonus yet detected in Ireland, will not be out of place here. 

 When my paper on this fish was published (Mag. Zool. and Bot. vol. i.), I had 

 seen specimens only from Lough Neagh; but from Harris's History of the 

 County of Down it was quoted, " that Lough Erne in the County of Fermanagh 

 has the same sort of fish, though not in so great plenty [as L. Neagh]." This I 

 am now enabled to verity. That the pollan is not " in so great plenty " there, 

 I became well satisfied during a visit — which was indeed a very hurried one — 

 to the lake in the autumn of 1837, when by inquiry from many persons I could 

 not learn anything of such a fish. But by the kind attention of Viscount Cole, 

 who resides within a few miles of Lough Erne, I have been lately favoured with 

 examples of the C. Pollan from that locality. On the "i'ind of October last I 

 received a specimen which was taken two days before, and was stated to have 

 been the first caught this season. On the '29th of the same month, I was obliging- 

 ly supplied with more examples ; and in a letter dated ;from Florence Court 

 the preceding day Lord Cole remarked, in reference to the species, " I have 

 now procured in all about ten or twelve. I cannot make out that they are ever 

 caught in any numbers in Lough Erne; indeed they are never sought after — 

 those which I have got were taken in eel-nets in the upper lough. I have 

 heard that three or four were caught in the lower lough this year in a drag- 

 net. This is all I at present know about them." 



Since my account of the pollan appeared, I have been favoured by Dr. Par- 

 nell with a specimen of the Coregonus of Loch Lomond (see his paper on this 

 subject in the Annals of Natural History, vol. i. p. 161), and by Sir Wm. Jar- 

 dine with one of the Ullswater species ; both of which are distinct from the Cor. 

 I'ollan, this having not as yet been found in any of the lakes of Great Britain. 



