THE OPAH. 228 



that it is able to make its way with considerable activity. 

 It keeps pace with schulls of Pilchards, so that some are 

 usually enclosed in the sean with them ; it also devours the 

 common cuttle, a creature of vigilance and celerity, and I 

 have seen a cuttle of a few inches long taken from the sto- 

 mach of a Dory that measured only four inches. It takes 

 the hook, but gives the preference to a living bait, and a 

 chad hooked through the back, with the prickly dorsal fin 

 cut off, is sure to entice it."* 



Pennant speaks of a Dory which weighed twelve pounds, 

 One of half that weight is considered above the average 



Genus LAMPRIS. — Dorsal fin one ; teeth wanting ; X ^/ 

 ventrals abdominal. 



Lampris guttatus -f* — The Opah. 



(See Plate XXVII.) 



Q J 

 Description. — From a specimen three feet in length. Body deep ; 



of an oval form ; sides compressed ; head about one-third the length 

 of the body, not including the caudal fin ; eyes large, placed nearer 

 the point of the upper jaw than to the posterior margin of the oper- 

 culum. Colour of the back a deep greenish blue ; sides rich green, re- 

 flecting in different lights purple and gold, with a number of yellowish- 

 white spots ; belly pale yellowish-green ; all the fins rich scarlet, as 

 well as the irides ; dorsal fin commencing in a line over the anterior 

 part of the base of the pectorals, and ending at a short distance from 

 the caudal fin ; first two rays spiny ; the five succeeding ones the high- 

 est, gradually decreasing to the seventeenth, which is not one-fourth 

 the height of the third ; the remainder nearly equal, becoming rather 

 longer towards the last ray ; anal fin about half the length of the dor- 

 sal ; the anterior rays longer than the terminating ones ; ventrals, 

 placed some distance behind the base of the pectorals, and reaching 

 beyond the twelfth ray of the anal ; pectorals not as long as the ven- 



* Yarrell's British Fishes. 



■f Lampris gjittalus, Cuv., Yarr. ; Lampris luna, Flem. ; Zeus tuna, Pen., 

 Don. Opah, King- fish. 



