1612 Fishes. 



Island. The whole of the wrasses are eaten by the fishermen, but 

 more for the sake of variety than from any delicacy of their flavour. 

 The flesh is very soft and rather sweet, and cannot be preserved for 

 any length of time. The motor lentis or square muscle of the lens, 

 in the interior of the eye, is strongly developed in all the wrasses, and 

 the nervous supply is large. 



Trumpet Fish, Woodcock Fish, and Bellows Fish, Centriscus 

 scolopax. This is very rare. Mr. Chergwin told me that he has seen 

 a specimen taken in Mount's Bay, and a fisherman tells me that he 

 has taken another off Cape Cornwall. 



Tench, Tinea vulgaris. To be found in the ponds at Trengwain- 

 ton, where they were placed by the late Sir Rose Price, Bart. The 

 dace is found in the Tamar, the carp and loach are found in a natu- 

 ralized state in a few ponds, and the minnow occurs in some 

 rivers of the county, but not within the district embraced by these 

 observations. 



Garfish, Garrick. Belone vulgaris. This remarkable fish is com- 

 mon on all parts of our shores. From the colour of its bones, it is fre- 

 quently called " green bones," but its most common name among the 

 fishermen is Garrick. It is migratory and gregarious in its habits, 

 frequently approaching the shores in large " schulls." During the 

 winter and spring it retires into deep water in a south-westerly direc- 

 tion, though it may be caught during every month in the year, near 

 the shore. On the northern part of our shores about Cape Cornwall, 

 and the other headlands, it retires in a north-westerly direction into 

 deep water, but the largest shoals are to the west, where they remain 

 during the winter, migrating a little up the various channels. As 

 summer approaches they again go west, and about April, May, and 

 June they approach the shores, and in June, July, and August, and 

 even so late as December they are taken by hundreds in the drift-nets 

 used for the taking of pilchards, and are sold at a very low price in 

 the market at Penzance. Like all gregarious fish while migrating, 

 they are fond of rising to the surface out of mere pleasure ; and as 

 they do this in the mackerel season, they are often mistaken by the 

 seiners and enclosed for mackerel. Their motion through the water 

 is rapid, and they will frequently rise to the surface and spring into 

 the air, and over anything that may be floating on the surface. It 

 freely takes the hook, but like the mackerel, and unlike most other 

 fish, it never plays round a bait, but strikes it as if it were living. The 

 mackerel strikes it sideways, the garfish generally obliquely upwards, 

 hence it happens, that when it takes the hook, the first notice of the 



