Fkhes. 3489 



Of these 97 fish, about 70 are also found in the Orkney and Shet- 

 land seas, from which also at least 97 species are known to have been 

 obtained : 76 of them are also included in Parnell's c Fishes of the 

 Forth,' which contains 125 species ; and 73 are among the ' Fishes of 

 the District of the Land's End" (Zool. 1400, &c), which admirable 

 paper contains 153 species. 



The comparatively small number of species hitherto known to have 

 been found in the Moray Firth and its adjacent waters, is to be ac- 

 counted for, not so much by any absolute deficiency, as by the absence 

 of observers able and willing to detect the more closely allied species, 

 or to make known the occurrence of others of more marked character, 

 as they are landed from the fisherman's boat, or accidentally stranded 

 on the shore. In this district, it must be remembered, the searching 

 powers of the dredge have almost never been put in requisition, either 

 by the amateur or professional fisherman ; and no seines, or trawl, or 

 shrimp nets are ever used, otherwise a considerable addition must have 

 been here made of the smaller species which are caught in other pla- 

 ces by these means, but which cannot swallow the baited haddock- 

 hook, or be retained by the meshes of the herring-net. Much then 

 remains to be done in the Ichthyology of the Moray Firth, in the dis- 

 covery of species new to it, as well as in recording the occurrence of 

 those that are rare, and in ascertaining more accurately and fully the 

 as yet little known habits, migrations, &c., of all. Incomplete as the 

 above list is, it will be seen that it would have been much more defi- 

 cient, had not Mr. Martin, of Anderson's Institution, Elgin, been able 

 to supply many notices of the more common, as well as of the rarer 

 species. It is hoped that those whose places of residence favour such 

 observations, will, as opportunity offers, add to the present enumera- 

 tion, until the catalogue be worthy of the field which it has assumed. 



The evanescent and mephitic nature of the fishy substance, and the 

 great similarity, to the unpractised eye, that subsists between really 

 different species, have been the chief obstacles to people otherwise 

 desirous of making suitable observations. The progress of Natural 

 History, or the increasing desire for a knowledge of the varied works 

 of creation, will perhaps by and by quicken the senses in the one case 

 and blunt them in the other ; so that no fish caught or cast ashore in 

 this district, and at all suspected to be rare or new to the Fauna of 

 Moray, will be neglected or destroyed without having "a local habita- 

 tion and its name " duly assigned to it in the great system of Nature. 



George Gordon. 

 March, 1852. 



x. 2 a 



