206 



AppeTidices to Fourth Annual Report 



This net is a very destructive one to young fishes ; indeed, the quan- 

 tities caught are often so enormous that lines of railway waggons are sent 

 off for manure. Besides sprats and herrings of various sizes, whiting, 

 young cod, common and sand-eels, many young flat fishes, such as plaice, 

 dabs, common flounders, and other young fishes, are captured. In the un- 

 saleable class are father-lashers (Cotti), armed bullheads, fifteen-spined 

 stickle-backs, Montagu's suckers, and other forms. Moreover, it is stated, 

 not a few salmon are caught by this apparatus, besides a large quantity of 

 small shrimps, which are unfit for the market. The tenacity of life in the 

 armed bullheads is considerable, and some of them will bear the voyage 

 shorewards in the Tay, a railway journey to St Andrews thereafter, in 

 tlie midst of the shrimps, and still survive. In a father-lasher (Coitus 

 sco7'pius) 10| inches long, the stomach contained no less than 25 sprats, 

 mostly 2J inches in length, besides the debris of others which could 

 not be readily distinguished. Amongst the small reddish ova in the 

 developing ovaries of this example were a few pale ova having a bulk 

 4 or 5 times as large as the rest. Whether these were the remnants 

 of last year's ova, which seems unlikely, or a few specially developed, is 

 at present uncertain. Their structure was normal. 



Examination of Food Fishes. 



Gurnards. — Specimens both of the red and the sapphirine gurnard are 

 procured off the Bay, the latter perhaps being more abundant than the 

 former. They seem chiefly to frequent the mouth of the Forth, and 

 several w^ere forwarded by Mr Scott. 



Tunny.- — A very fine male tunny (Plate VIII.) was courteously for- 

 warded on the 17th October by Mr Scott on behalf of the General 

 Steam Fishing Company, of Granton, and was dissected at the Laboratory. 

 The huge proportions of this fish made it an interesting subject for com- 

 parison with the forms usually observed in Britain. Its whole length was 

 9 feet, and its weight about 6f cwts. It was caught in the trawl of the 

 steamer ' Douglas ' in the ' Traith,' off Pittenweem, a region formerly 

 famous for its turbot and other flat fishes, and also occasionally for its 

 herrings. The animal was dead when the trawl was drawn up, apparently 

 judging from the abrasions on its surface and fins, having exhausted itself 

 in its desperate struggles to escape. An account of the anatomical and 

 other features of this rare visitant to these shores will be published in a 

 scientific journal,* but the following dimensions, with the accompanying 

 sketch and remarks, will be useful. 



Total length, 9 feet. 



Greatest girth, 6 feet 5 inches; at base of tail, 11 inches. 

 Mandible to pectoral, 2 feet 2 inches. 



„ to margin of gill-cover, 2 feet 3J inches. 

 Gape, upper edge, 7^ inches. 



„ to angle of maxilla, 10 inches. 

 Width of gape (from premaxillary region to mandible), 8 inches. 

 Tip of snout to anterior border of first dorsal, 2 feet 6 inches. 

 ,, „ „ second dorsal, 4 feet 5 inches. 



„ base of tail, 7 feet 10 inches. 



Length (along base) of first dorsal, 1 foot 1 1 inches. 



„ „ second dorsal, 9 inches. 



Height of first dorsal (base to apex), 10 J inches. 



„ second dorsal (along the margin) 1 foot, 3J inches. 

 * Ann. Nat. Hist., April 1886. 



