Class IV. OPAH DOREE. 290 



Opah, or King-fish. Ph. Zeus Luna. Gm. Lin. 1225. 2. Opah. 



Trans, abr. xi. 879. tab. v. Poisson de Lune. Duhamel 



Zeus cauda bifurca, colore ar- iii. 74. tab. 15. 



genteo purpureo splendens. Le Chrysotose Lune. De la 



Strom. Sondmor. 323, 325. Cepede Hist, des Poissons, 



lab. I. Jig. 20. iv. 588. 



VV E have only * five instances of this fish 

 being taken in our seas, four of them in the 

 North, viz. twice off Scotland, f once off North- 

 umberland, one in Filey-Bay, Yorkshire ; and a 

 fifth was caught at Brivham, in Tor bay, in 1772. 

 The last weighed a hundred and forty pounds. 

 The length was four feet and an half ; the 

 breadth two feet and a quarter; the greatest 

 thickness, only four inches. Its general color 

 was a vivid transparent scarlet varnish over 

 burnished gold, bespangled with oval silver 

 spots of various sizes ; the breast was an hard 



* The reverend George Barry informs us in his History ef the 

 Orkney islands, that the Opah is not very uncommon in those 

 seas, and that several have been taken or driven on shore as well 

 near the island of Sanday as in the bays of Scapa and Kirkwall 

 on the Mainland. Ed. 



+ The fish engraved by Sir Robert Sibbald, Hist. Scot. Tab. 

 6. and thus described, is of this kind. Piscis maculis aureis 

 aspersus non scriptus, pollices 42 longus. 



