52 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



[25.] 1. Scorp^na (Sebastes) Norvegica. (Cuvier.) Northern Sebastes. 



Family, Cottoideae. Genus, Scorpaena, Linn. Sub-genus, Sebastes, Cuv. 



Sea Perch. Penn., Br. Zool., iii., p. 349, pi. 59, f. 2. 



La Sebaste septentrionale {Sebastes Norvegicus). Cuv. et Vai.., iv., p. 327. 



The Scorpcence have a strong resemblance to the Cotti in possessing a large 

 spiny head, large pectorals, and, in part, the thick simple rays of these fins, but 

 they differ in the compressed form of the head, the undivided dorsal, and in the 

 presence of palatine teeth. They have seven branchiostegous rays. The clumsy 

 head and soft spongy skin of the Scorpcence give them a hideous aspect, and the 

 spines with which they are armed are formidable to those who attempt to handle 

 them. Setting aside the bony armour of the cheeks, the spines of the head, and 

 the simple inferior rays of the pectorals, they have much affinity with some of the 

 percoidese, particularly Grystes and Centropristis. None of the true Scorpsense 

 are mentioned by authors as existing within the limits which we have assigned to 

 our Fauna, but the Scorpcena porcus, which has an extensive range in Europe, 

 throughout the Mediterranean, and from the British Channel to Teneriffe, occurs 

 also at New York. 



We have, however, to notice two northern species of Sebastes, a sub-genus, 

 which possesses all the characters of Scorpcena, except that the head is scaly, is 

 less studded with spines and crests, and wants the skinny shreds or appendages. 

 The resemblance of the Sebastes to some of the Percoidese with a solitary dorsal 

 is such, that they have been considered as congeners by naturalists of the first rank. 

 The Sebastes Norvegica inhabits the Icy Sea and Northern Ocean. It is plen- 

 tiful on the Norway coast, and is found at Iceland, Greenland, in the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence, and off Newfoundland. It inhabits the deepest bays of South Green- 

 land, and does not approach the shore, except when driven thither by tempests. It 

 feeds upon the pleuronectes cynoglossum, and readily takes a hook. Its flesh is 

 dry but agreeable. The Greenlanders eat its lips raw, and were formerly accus- 

 tomed to use its spines as sewing needles. It has a swimming bladder, which the 

 Scorpaense have not, and which does not exist in all the Sebastes. 



Its colour, when quite fresh, is a bright carmine, which is paler towards the belly, and 

 mixed with brown on the back ; there is likewise a blackish mark on the tip of the gill-cover. 

 In form this Sebastes resembles the perch, that is, its body is somewhat compressed, and its 

 profile oblong, the dorsal and ventral curves being slightly convex ; the mouth is oblique and 

 the lower jaw projects a little. The posterior sub-orbitar bone sends a process obliquely back- 



