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Part III. — Eighteenth Annual Report 



VI. — THE FISHES OF THE FIRTH OF CLYDE. 



By Thomas Scott, F.L.S., Mem. Soc. Zool. de France. 



It has been considered desirable that a list should be prepared of the 

 fishes which have from time to time been observed within the limits of the 

 Clyde estuary. The list is not a descriptive one, but is merely an enumera- 

 tion of the various species which have come under the notice of the 

 writer, together with those which have been recorded by different authors 

 who have written on the fauna of the Clyde, or which have been seen by 

 persons whose accuracy may be relied on. The following are the chief 

 sources from which my information concerning Clyde fishes has been 

 obtained : — 



(1.) A List of Loch Fyne Fishes, prepared for the most part by the late 

 George Brook, Esq. , F.L.S., and published in the Fourth Annual Report 

 of the Fishery Board for Scotland (1886). (A Revised List of Loch Fyne 

 Fishes is published in the Board's Fifteenth Annual Report, Part III., 

 1897).* 



(2.) A paper by Dr. Albert C. L. G. Giinther, F.R.S., entitled, 

 "Report on the Fishes obtained by Mr. (now Sir) J. Murray in deep 

 water on the North- West Coast of Scotland, between April 1887 and 

 February 1888," published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, 

 Edinburgh, Vol. XV. (1888). In this report 31 species are recorded, 

 one of which was new to science, while two were additions to the British 

 fauna. The species recorded in Dr. Giinther's paper were mostly from 

 the Clyde area, and there are some interesting notes on the bathymetrical 

 distribution of the species. 



(3.) A Vertebrate Fauna of Argyle and the Inner Hebrides, by J. 

 A. Harvey-Brown and Thomas E. Buckley, published in 1892. The part 

 of this work which is referred to in the present paper is the separate reprint 

 of the list of fishes. In the list of fishes given in this work, the 

 authors include Dr. Giinther's records mentioned above, in the 

 form of foot-notes under each of the species to which the records specially 

 refer ; additional Clyde records are also given in this work. 



(4.) The statistics published in the Annual Reports of the Fishery 

 Board for Scotland, in so far as they relate to the fishes of the Firth of 

 Clyde, and especially to those fishes which have been captured by the 

 Fishery steamer "Garland." 



I have also to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Duthie, the Fishery 

 Officer at Girvan, and to Mr. Gray of the Marine Station, Millport, Cumbrae, 

 for interesting information relating to Clyde fishes. Other sources of 

 information are duly acknowledged in the sequel. 



Before proceeding with the enumeration of species, it may be of interest 

 to refer to some points concerning the distribution of one or two of the 

 forms which are usually considered to be more or less rare in the Clyde 

 area. Previous to the investigations carried on by Dr. (now Sir) 

 John Murray, by means of the s.s. "Medusa," the fish usually called 

 the Sharp-tailed Lumpenus, Lumpenus lampetraforniis, was not known 

 to occur within the limits of the Clyde ; but now, by the use of a 

 small-mesh trawl-net, this fish is found to be comparatively frequent 



* The compiler of this revised list had the privilege of consulting the records of Loch 

 Fyne fauna obtained by the s.s. " Medusa "' as the result of th% investigations carried 

 on by Sir John Murray on the West Coast. 



