On Shoals of Dead Fish. 271 



247). Thus we have a range for the Pterygotus from the 

 Caradoc conglomerate to the Devonian rock of Arbroath 

 inclusive — a range even greater than that of the long-lived 

 Calymene Blumenbachii. 



Notice of Shoals of Dead Fish observed on the passage 

 between Mirimachi, Nevj Brunswick, and the port of 

 Gloucester. Communicated by the Rev. W. S. Symonds. 

 With some Bemarks by Sir W. Jardine, Bart. 



The following is an extract from a letter received from the 

 Rev. W. S. Symonds of Pendock Rectory, Gloucestershire. 

 The particulars were communicated to that gentleman by John 

 Jones, Esq., Vice-Consul at the port of Gloucester to his 

 Majesty the Emperor of Austria : — 



"Enclosed in a little box is a dried specimen of a small 

 * gar fish," 1 and a paper containing notes from the log-book of 

 Captain Parsons, of the ship Harbinger, of the track and dates 

 in which the fish was found on the passage between Miri- 

 machi, New Brunswick, and the port of Gloucester. It was 

 impossible, in the great distance through which he sailed, to 

 pull up a ship's bucket without four or five dead gar fish. It 

 appears the fish were most numerous in that latitude through 

 which the volcanic band of Iceland, the Azores, the Canaries 

 and Madeira just strikes, and I believe, therefore, that the 

 immense shoals must have been destroyed by submarine vol- 

 canic action, and we may thus learn a lesson of the manner 

 in which some of our fish-beds have been formed, and even of 

 the destruction of genera and species. " 



The above short extract is of very great interest. The 

 specimen of the fish itself, as nearly as can be made out from 

 the state in which it was dried, is the Sygnathus anguineus — 

 a species inhabiting the British seas, but having a consider- 

 able extent of range southward. Mr Yarrell informs me, 

 he has seen specimens from the latitude of Madeira ; and this 

 fact is of some importance, as it renders it more probable that 

 the destruction was caused by submarine disturbance taking 

 place within the zone to which Mr Symonds alludes. 



t2 



