Mr Yarrell's History of British Fishes. 389 
the wound, with a tingling pain. Of the Gurnards, Trigla, six spe- 
cies are figured, and one is dedicated to Bloch to prevent confusion 
in the application of " Cuculus," which that naturalist and Linnaeus 
had given to different species. Mr Yarrell remarks, that they most- 
ly swim in deep water, and are taken by the traul-nets. The grey 
gurnard, by far the most abundant on the western coasts of Scot- 
land, often delights on the surface. We recollect observing the 
sports of shoals of this species when on an excursion to the Western 
Isles, during a week of beautiful and too calm weather, for it was 
before steam-boats plied. They were often discovered by their noise, 
a dull croak or croon, whence most probably their provincial name 
of Crooner, or by the ripple or plough of their nose on the surface^ 
of the calm sea ; thus they would swim for a few yards, and then lan- 
guidly sink for a foot or eighteen inches, display and stretch their 
lovely fins, and again rise to the top. Boats were out with hand-lines, 
almost all were half-full, the men having little to do but bait the 
hooks and pull up. We resorted to our guns, and killed sufficient for 
dinner from the deck of the vessel. Cottus gobio is rare in Scotland. 
C. scorpius is badly represented ; there are two lateral lines 
strongly denticulated in the figure, which we vainly look for in the 
fish itself. The C. bubalis, on the contrary, is an exquisite figure, 
full of life and expression. C. quadricornis is given, for the first 
time, as British, from a specimen in the National Collection. As- 
pidophorus Europceus is not uncommon in the Solway. We have 
two species of Gasterosteus new to Britain, one from Ireland, the 
other from the vicinity of Edinburgh ; and from the small size and 
close alliance of these beautiful, but not very useful fish, we may 
yet look for other additions. The Mackerel is exquisitely cut. Mr 
Yarrell's observations on its migration are interesting, and afford a 
good example of his writing. 
" The mackerel was supposed by Anderson, Buhamel, and others, 
to be a fish of passage ; performing, like some birds, certain perio- 
dical migrations, and making long voyages from north to south at 
one season of the year, and the reverse at another. It does not ap- 
pear to have been sufficiently considered, that, inhabiting a medium 
which varied but little either in its temperature or productions, 
locally, fishes are removed beyond the influence of the two principal 
causes which make a temporary change of situation necessary. In- 
dependently of the difficulty of tracing the course pursued through 
so vast an expanse of water, the order of the appearance of the fish 
at different places on the shores of the temperate and southern parts 
NO. iv. c c 
