MAMMALOGY. 



inserted in the 6th volume of the Amoenitates Academicae, he found 

 among writers, in whom he thought he could repose confidence, four 



of exhibiting the branchiostegous rays, or any trace of the gill merabrane, 

 the place is covered by two teat-like appendages of the wrinkled flabby 

 bosom. Whether the osseous girdle to which the pectoral fins are usually 

 attached, and which may be considered truly as the clavicular bones of the 

 fish has been allowed (o remain, does not appear evident; we should ex- 

 pect upon dissection those bones would be found under the projections 

 denominated the breasts, and yet serving as the base to which the pectoral 

 fins are naturally attached. Upon the dorsal portion of the fish there were 

 no bones to conceal, the skin has been taken off as near the skull as possible, 

 and the animal thrust into it so deeply that this piscivorous clothing of the 

 body reaches up to the fourth vertebral joint from the direct line below the 

 shoulders. It is across this part that the junction of the hairy skin of the 

 Orang-Outang becomes conspicuous, for this dorsal portion has not the ad- 

 vantage of being concealed as it is in front under and between the 

 mammae or teat-like prominences of the breast. 



Thus therefore it will be observed, that it is not the tail merely of the 

 fish, but the whole body of the fish with the exception of the head that con- 

 stitutes the tail of our present " Mermaid : an unwieldy and inflexible 

 posterior appendage truly for the trunk of such an active being as an ape. 

 But its presence here is useful because we are left by these means in no 

 uncertainty as to the nature of its piscivoious addendum; even in its 

 decapitated state we perceive it to be of the Salmo genus, and at the first 

 glance it would appear the species Salar, our common salmon. 



The appearance of the common Salmon is so familiar to every one and 

 so closely resembles the piscivorous portion of the Mermaid,'^ that few 

 observers will hesitate to admit the similarity. There are, however, some 

 points to be observed which are likely to pass unnoticed, and yet should be 

 considered in the determination of its species. It will indeed demand the 

 eye of an attentive Ichthyologist to decide whether in this object we 

 view the remains of a single species, or in some small degree at least a 

 combination of two diff'erent fishes ingeniously consolidated together : let 

 us proceed to examine this — the pectoral, ventral, and dorsal fins accord 

 with those of the common Salmon (Salmo Salar); it is not merely in the 

 number of the rays of which these fins consist that we find this accordance 

 but in their form and relative position, and also in the scaliness of the skin, 

 the form of the scales, their size, and the impression left on the skin, when 

 these are rubbed away, for there are few of the scales remaini»g. All this 



