78 FISHES I HAVE KNOWN 



duty as a tail. Frank Buckland says : " Let any 

 one utilise the inner surface of his own hand, 

 imagine all the fingers taken clean away from the 

 palm, draw a fish's eye on the skin at the base of 

 the forefinger, and a pectoral fin in the centre of 

 the palm, erect a thumb as high as possible, and 

 imagine another thumb to match affixed directly 

 opposite the upper one to the lower part of the 

 palm, and you have a fancy portrait of the curious 

 sun-fish, fins and all." They are good-sized fish. 

 I have seen them five or six feet in diameter and 

 half a ton in weight, often in company with sharks 

 and taking not the least notice of them. 



They have small mouths and no real teeth — the 

 jaw being like a turtle's — and their eyes are large. 

 They are harmless creatures, vegetable-eaters, and 

 browse at the bottom of the sea, varying their 

 diet with molluscs. Their flesh, containing but 

 little muscle, is said to be poisonous, and is full of 

 oil, for the sake of which they are sometimes 

 captured, though often when the fish is harpooned 

 the oil escapes, being more active than it looks. A 

 better method is to shoot them with a rifle, and I 

 recollect seeing one that had been thus killed 

 floating in Corio Bay, Geelong. 



Sun-fish have been found in the English 

 Channel, and one, weighing 250 lbs., was captured 

 off Cornwall on June 22, 1850. 



