Mr Yarrell's History of British Fishes. 389 



the wound, with a tingling pain. Of the Gurnards, Trigla, six spe- 

 cies are figured, and one is dedicated to Bloch to prevent confusion 

 in the application of " Cuculus/' which that naturalist and Linnaeus 

 had given to different species. Mr Yarrell remarks, that they most- 

 ly swim in deep water, and are taken by the traul-nets. The grey 

 gurnard, by far the most abundant on the western coasts of Scot- 

 land, often delights on the surface. We recollect observing the 

 sports of shoals of this species when on an excursion to the Western 

 Isles, during a week of beautiful and too calm weather, for it was 

 before steam-boats plied. They were often discovered by their noise, 

 a dull croak or croon, whence most probably their provincial name 

 of Crooner, or by the ripple or plough of their nose on the surface 

 of the calm sea ; thus they would swim for a few yards, and then lan- 

 guidly sink for a foot or eighteen inches, display and stretch their 

 lovely fins, and again rise to the top. Boats were out with hand-lines, 

 almost all were half- full, the men having little to do but bait the 

 hooks and pull up. We resorted to our guns, and killed sufficient for 

 dinner from the deck of the vessel. Cottus gobio is rare in Scotland. 

 C. scorpius is badly represented ; there are two lateral lines 

 strongly denticulated in the figure, which we vainly look for in the 

 fish itself. The C. bubalis, on the contrary, is an exquisite figure, 

 full of life and expression. C. quadricornis is given, for the first 

 time, as British, from a specimen in the National Collection. As- 

 pidopltems Europceus is not uncommon in the Solway. We have 

 two species of Gasterosteus new to Britain, one from Ireland, the 

 other from the vicinity of Edinburgh ; and from the small size and 

 close alliance of these beautiful, but not very useful fish, we may 

 yet look for other additions. The Mackerel is exquisitely cut. Mr 

 Yarrell's observations on its migration are interesting, and afford a 

 good example of his writing. 



" The mackerel was supposed by Anderson, Duhamel, and others, 

 to be a fish of passage ; performing, like some birds, certain perio- 

 dical migrations, and making long voyages from north to south at 

 one season of the year, and the reverse at another. It does not ap- 

 pear to have been sufficiently considered, that, inhabiting a medium 

 which varied but little either in its temperature or productions, 

 locally, fishes are removed beyond the influence of the two principal 

 causes which make a temporary change of situation necessary. In- 

 dependently of the difficulty of tracing the course pursued through 

 so vast an expanse of water, the order of the appearance of the fish 

 at different places on the shores of the temperate and southern parts 



no. iv. c c 



