224 



SORDID DRAGONET. Class IV. 



are yellow, blue, white, and make a beautiful 

 appearance when the fish has been just taken ; 

 the blue is of an inexpressible splendor, the 

 richest caerulean glowing with a gemmeous bril- 

 liancy ; the throat is black ; the membranes of 

 all the fins extremely thin and delicate. 



*2. Sordid. Dracunculus. Wil.Ichth.l3Q. 

 (Female.) RaiiSyn.pisc.7Q. 



Cottus pinna secunda dorsi al- 

 ba. Arted. Synon. 77. 

 Callionymus Dracunculus. C. 

 dorsalis prioris radiis cor- 

 pora brevioribus. Lin. Syst. 



TION. 



434. Gm. Lin. 1152. 

 Le Doucet. Block ichth. v. 



71. tab. 162. f. 2. 

 Le Callionyme dragoneau. De 



la Cepede Hist, des Pois- 



sons, ii. 335. 



Descrip- J_HIS species we received from Mr. Travis. 

 Its length was only six inches and an half. The 

 head was compressed; the forehead sloped down 

 to the nose, being not so level as that of the pre- 

 ceding ; the eyes large, and almost contiguous ; 

 the mouth small ; the teeth very minute ; over 

 the gills was a strong trifurcated broad spine. 



* Mr. Neill, at p. 529 °f tne Memoirs of the Wernerian So- 

 ciety, states, that he has examined several dozens of the Drago- 

 nets, which were taken promiscuously on the same lines, in the 

 Frith of Forth, that the gemmeous were uniformly milters, and 

 the sordid, spawners, hence he reasonably concludes that they 

 are only male and female of the same species. The Dragonet is 

 common near the mouth of the Frith of Forth, and is frequently 

 caught, in water from twelve to twenty fathoms deep, on the 

 Haddock lines, which are baited with muscles. Ed. 



