82 MR. F. DAY ON THE HEBRIDAL ARGENTINE. 



ground-feeding Loaches and some of the Siluroids, where this organ 

 is protected from pressure by being enclosed in bone by a deve- 

 lopment of the parapophyses of the anterior vertebra?. 



We find a figure and description of this species in Rondelet's 

 Marine Fishes, which was reproduced by Gresner. Willughby gives 

 " Pisciculus Romae Argentina dictus. Sphyrcena parva sive Sphy • 

 rcence secunda species, Rondeletio Gresner 1061," — very clearly in- 

 dicating that this author referred to the fish described by Ron- 

 delet and Gresner ; while it was likewise his Roman deep-sea fish 

 from whose air-bladder materials were obtained for the manufac- 

 ture of artificial pearls. Ray copies almost verbatim from the 

 authors I have quoted. Doubtless Artedi's species was identical 

 with Argentina sphyrcena of Linnaeus, but not with Grronovius's fish. 

 Risso, in his ' Ichthyology of Nice,' refers to the same fish, under 

 Linnaeus's name, as being captured throughout the year in the 

 sea, as well as to its air-bladder being employed in artificial pearl- 

 making. The synonyms I have given likewise show how it has 

 been observed upon by Cuvier, Nilsson, Yarrell, Valenciennes, 

 &c, the last-mentioned author, as is well known, having a par- 

 tiality for changing specific names. Thus he gives Argentina 

 sphyrcena of Linnaeus and Cuvier as A. Cuvieri, admitting the two 

 to be identical : and he changes Osmerus hebridicus, Yarrell, into 

 Atlierina Yarrelli. 



Up to the present time I have only been able to find three 

 British examples of this fish recorded, and all mentioned by 

 Yarrell. Two were from the S.W. coast of Scotland, where the 

 fishermen reported it as well known, but rarely seen : one of 

 these was 8| inches long, taken in 1836, full of roe, in the 

 bay of Rothesay, Isle of Bute ; the second, 6^ inches in length, 

 in November 1837 near the same spot, on a hand-line baited with a 

 piece of mussel, and in 12 fathoms of water, about 200 yards from 

 the shore. The third, of which I have been unable to obtain any 

 description, came from the German Ocean off Redcar, in York- 

 shire, where it was obtained by Mr. Rudd, who showed it to 

 Mr. Yarrell. 



Couch, when he published his work on the Fishes of the 

 British Isles in 1862, did not appear to have met with the spe- 

 cies, although he observes that it " is not rare iu the sea near the 

 islands to the north of Scotland," but omits giving his authority 

 for the statement. He likewise remarks, " I am informed by Mr. 

 John Iverach of Kirkwall, in Orkney, that it is not known to the 

 fishermen of that island." Four years subsequently (1866) Dr. 



