SOME RARE OR UNCOMMON FISHES 283 



finlets on both margins of the body, but the corselet of scales 

 is much less conspicuous. This tunny appears to be confined 

 on the rare occasions of its visits to our Channel coast, not 

 having found its way, like O. thynnus, to the more northern 

 portions of the island. 



The Bonito {'Thynnus pelamys) and Belted Bonito {Pelamys 

 sarda) are allied fishes without scales on the lower portions 

 of the body, or indeed anywhere except on their large 

 corselet. Both are marked with curved dark bands, which 

 extend over the whole body in the bonito, but are confined 

 in the belted species to the upper half, while the bonito is 

 further distinguished by a long spinous front dorsal fin. 

 Neither are taken in our seas of great size, from 23 to 36 in. 

 being the greatest length. Mr. Dunn was of opinion that 

 these bonitoes were more plentiful in our seas in former 

 times. Both have been taken on the mackerel lines, the bonito 

 as far north as in the Firths of Forth and Clyde. 



The Plain Bonito {Auxis rochet) is so called from the 

 absence of bands. There are no scales except on the corselet, 

 and all the fins are conspicuously small. In colour this fish 

 is blue and silver, like most of the mackerels. The largest 

 caught in our seas measured 18 in., and one of 2 in. less was 

 lately taken in a mackerel-seine in Plymouth Sound. 



The Remora {Echeneis remord), or Sucker, has been taken 

 on the Cornish and Irish coasts, Matthias Dunn having taken 

 one from a blue shark eighteen miles off the Deadman. It 

 is dull brown in colour, and the front dorsal fin is so modified 

 as to form an adhesive disc — a converse, so to speak, of the 

 abdominal sucking disc in Lepadogaster. From the habit of 

 this little fish, which clings to its hosts with the back of its 

 head, and is therefore carried through the water with its 

 under surface exposed to the light, a reversion of the usual 

 conditions has resulted, and the back of the fish is lighter in 

 colour than the belly. This is so different from what we 

 are accustomed to see in fishes that the eye at first refuses 



