RIBAND FISH. 233 



appendixes, by the translators of the ninth volume of 

 Cuvier's ' Regne Animal :' — ' If we figure to ourselves a 

 large hroad riband of silver, swimming in undulations 

 and sending forth in its motions beautiful reflections of 

 light, we shall have an idea of the efiect produced by the 

 lepidopus argyretis whilst living in the waters of the 

 sea.' The length of this splendid species is sometimes 

 not less than five feet ; and had it been known to the 

 salt-water poets of either Greece or Latium, they could 

 hardly, we think, have failed to celebrate its beauty in 

 their descriptive and harmonious verse. It seems, how- 

 ever, to be quite a recent addition to the long list of 

 modem Mediterranean eurekas, one of the many disco- 

 veries, which attests the truth of the adage, that more 

 things live in the sea than will ever come out of it ; and 

 that what Gray sings of ocean gems is equally applicable 

 to ocean fish. 



