PLATE XXX. 
Trigk varia, rostro diacantho, aculels geminis ad utrumque oculum. 
Artedi gen - 46. syn. 74. 
Gurnatus seu gurnadus griseus, the grey Gurnard, Will. Ichth. 219. 
— Hail, Syn. pise. 88. 
Trigla lateribus nigro alboque punctatis, linea laterali lata aculcato. 
Bloch Fisch. Deutsch. 2. p. 121. 
Grey Gurnard, Penn. Brit. Zool. 3. p . 216. 
The Grey Gurnard is usually from ten, or twelve, to eighteen 
inches in length, and according to Mr. Pennant and others, is some- 
times taken of nearly double that size. The colour of the back 
varies from a pale to a deeper ash, and the spottings of black and 
white, or yellowish, seem liable to variation in a similar degree. 
Gmelin characterizes it specifically as being spotted on the back 
with black and red, to which M. Bloch objects, that none of those 
he has seen were spotted with the latter colour ; and we must confess 
that although we have seen them tinged with red on that part, it was 
not in any instance disposed in spots so as to merit the epithet, dorso 
maculis nigris rubrisgtie. The lateral line in this species is marked by 
larger scales, and is more strongly serrated than in the other Gurnards, 
as Bloch observes ; and in the opinion of that naturalist is a distinctive 
character of the species. The nose is bifurcated, and each side 
armed with smaller spines, a circumstance remarked by Artedi, but 
being by no means peculiar to this kind, ought not, as that writer 
imagined, be considered as a character of the species ; and the same 
may be said of the two spines near the eyes which Artedi mentions. 
It is rather of a slender shape : the bones of the first dorsal fin strong* 
