6986 Fishes. 



manner : he confirms the above statement, adding that he sent it to the" Daily Post ' 

 himself, and adding also that the young one reported to have been caught was pre- 

 sented to the Museum at Melbourne, where it was thoroughly inspected and pro- 

 nounced to be a veritable sea serpent. — Edward Newman\. 



An Account of the Bermudian Riband Fish. 

 By J. Mathew Jones, Esq. 



[I have received the following particulars of this most interesting capture from an 

 old and valued correspondent of the ' Zoologist.' It must be read in connexion with 

 a previous note on the same animal in the April number of the 'Zoologist' 

 (Zool. 69^'^).— Edward Newman]. 



Order Acanthopterygii. 

 Family Cepolid^. 

 Genus Gymnetrus. 



Body attenuate, compressed, naked, tuberculate ; cuticle, a silvery 

 covering of metallic lustre. Length, from facialto caudal extremities, 

 sixteen feet seven inches. Depth, at fourteen inches from facial 

 extremity, nine inches, and increasing gradually to near the ventral 

 extremity of the stomach, when it attained its greatest depth of 

 eleven inches, and then decreased by degrees to the caudal termina- 

 tion. Width, at the same distance and through the spinal column, 

 two and a half to three inches. 



These dimensions are in the extreme. 



From the frontal extremity of the caput (excepting a slight depres- 

 sion at the occiput) to the position at which the above dimensions of 

 depth and width were taken, a gradual elevation of the dorsal ridge 

 took place, and from the capital portion of this ridge arose at equal 

 distances from each other, a series of ten or eleven erect, quill-like, 

 flexile filaments, from two to three feet in extent, gradually tapering 

 from base to apex, and possessing, in the case of the three longest, 

 lanceolate points. These capital filaments were, with the exception 

 of the three anterior ones, unconnected by membrane. From this 

 series of lengthened filaments, all along the back, from head to tail, 

 extended a series of intermittent fins, so closely situate to each other 

 as to present the appearance of a single fin, and having the spinose 

 rays of each individual fin joined by the connecting membrane. The 

 ventral fins were entirely destroyed, save a portion of the right ven- 



