WOULD-BE SEA-SERPENTS. 93 
has created the greatest sensation. The members of the National 
History Society of that town have duly reported upon it, and 
expressed their opinion, that it is a young specimen of the genus 
Gymnetrus, only four of which species, and those very rare, are 
known to ichthyologists, and described by Cuvier and others as 
inhabiting the Indian, Mediterranean and White Seas. The present 
specimen has become the property of a Newcaste merchant, who 
has presented it to the museum of that town; and we understand 
that, in accordance with a very general wish of most of our 
distinguished naturalists, it is now exhibiting in the metropolis.” 
As we read in the Zoologist for 1849, p. 2460-—-2462, Mr. 
AnBaNny Hancock and Dr. Emsiuron now declared it to be a 
probably new species of the genus of riband-fish (Gymmnetrus). 
Fig. 13 shows the readers a kind of riband-fish, the Gymnetrus 
gladius of Cuvier and Vauenciennes, taken from the Régne Animal. 
This fish is of a silvery colour, except. the fins and the peculiar 
Maas vmerenasenrntete ATL 
Fig. 13. — Gymnetrus gladius, Cuv. Val. 
articulated head-ornaments, which are crimson. Its length is about 
ten feet, its home the Mediterranean. The Gymnetrus Banksii or 
Regalecus Banksii of Cuvier, closely allied to it, measures about 
twenty feet, sometimes more, and is, though rarely, hitherto 
caught only near the British sores! The fish im question therefore 
most probably pene. to this species. 
