227 



OCCURIIENCES OF 

 BANKS' OAK-PISH, THE SUN-PISH, AND THE OPAH 

 ON THE YORKSHIRE AND DURHAM COASTS. 



Rev. E. H. SMART, B.A.Oxon., 

 Vicar of Kirby-in-C Icveland, Yorkshire. 



I AM indebted to the kindness of Mr. William Jones, of Scarborough, 

 for the following account of a very rare visitor to oiu- shores — a 

 specimen of the Hawkins' Gymnetrus or Banks' Garfish. 



' It was washed ashore on the rocks at Flamborough Head, and 

 was observed by three fishermen splashing about in a pool on the 

 shore, close to the edge of the sea, on February i8th, 1884. Being 

 afraid that it might be taken back into the sea by the then flowing 

 tide, one of the men threw a large stone at it, w^hich struck it on the 

 head and damaged it considerably. After dragging it out of the way of 

 the incoming tide, its captors, being anxious to keep it alive, placed it 

 in another pool, where it soon began to revive, and they thought it 

 was going to prove their master and escape into the sea. When they 

 attempted to get hold of it, it became somewhat violent, and, to use 

 the fishermen's own words, " strake out like a horse." Its length was 

 13 feet 6 inches, and its greatest girth 3 feet. It was preserved and 

 mounted (a work of considerable difficulty, owing to its extreme 

 brittleness) by Mr. E. V. Thompson, taxidermist, of Scarborough, 

 and is the only specimen known to have been successfully preserved. 

 I w^as allowed to examine the liver and stomach; the former was 

 about 33 to 36 inches long, and was of a beautiful pink colour, and 

 although the fish had been dead for seven days before it was opened, 

 there was not the slightest smell or sign of decomposition. 



' The contents of the stomach, as seen through a very powerful 

 microscope, consisted of small shells and insects not discernible by 

 the naked eye, and my examination of the whole internal structure of 

 the fish convinced me that it lived by suction. The skin appeared to 

 the naked eye of silvery brightness, like that of a newly-caught 

 herring ; but, examined through the microscope, it looked like pearls 

 set in silver. When I saw it first, the fish had lost its oars or pectoral 

 fins, but the stumps were there, about 4^ inches long. I have shown 

 the oars in a sketch which I made, also the head plumes, but 

 these had been broken by the fishermen in carrying the fish up the 

 cliff, and they afterwards found one on the beach. A more beautiful 

 specimen of a fish I never saw.' 



Aug. 1887. 



