174 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
The Rib grows also to the length of a foot, and the sides 
are finely tinged with gold. 
The Poor is the only species of cod found in the Medi- 
terranean ; it is nrt more than six inches long. 
The Coal Fish takes its name from the black colour it 
sometimes assumes. It grows to the length of two feet and 
a half, and is of a more elegant shape than the cod. The 
flesh is little esteemed when fresh, but is commonly salted 
and dried for sale. The fry of this fish, however, is called 
parr, and is esteemed good food. 
The Pollack does not grow to a very large size, but is a 
very good eating fish. The first back fin has eleven rays, 
the middle nineteen, the last sixteen. The tail is a little 
forked ; the colour of the back is dusky, in some inclining 
to green ; the belly is white. 
The Whiling is a fish of an elegant form, and the most 
delicate food of all the genus. The first back fin has fifteen 
rays, the second eighteen, the third twenty. The back is a 
pale brown, and the belly silvery white. It seldom exceeds 
twelve inches in length. 
The seven last species have three back fins ; the hake, 
the ling, and the burbot , have only two ; and the torsk has 
only one. 
The Blenny has the body oblong ; the head obtuse; 
the teeth a single range ; the fin covering the gills with six 
spines; the ventral fins have two small blunt bones in each ; 
it has one dorsal fin which is prickly, and several of the 
species are crested, or have a small fin like a crest, upon 
their heads. 
The Blenny is a small fish, measuring from five to seven 
inches. It is found among stones upon rocky coasts, and 
sometimes in the mouths of rivers. One species of this 
fish is viviparous, and brings forth two or three hundred at 
a time. These are very common at the mouth of the Esk, 
at Whitby, in Yorkshire. 
The third division is called the Thoracic, or those Jishes 
which have the belly jins immediately under the pectoral. 
For this kind see the Ballan. 
I he Go by, or R ock-fish, is not above six inches long. 
The body is solt, slippery and slender ; the head large, the 
cheeks inflated. It has two back fins, and the ventral fins 
coalesce, and form a sort of funnel, by which these fish fix 
themselves immoveably to the rocks. 
