GREENLAND BDLLHEAD, 
13 
“ 'I’he Coitus Grosnlandicus is admirably described in Hicbard- 
son’s ‘Zoology of British America,’ known as tbe Greenland 
Bullhead — the Kaniock and Kanininock of the Greenlanders. 
The colours of the specimen here figured were extremely 
beautiful the shades of the head Vandyke brown, the deeper 
umber beautifully glazed over with a pinkish or violet tinge, 
the dorsal and above the lateral line more or less shaded and 
spotted towards the tail, and leaving a line of numerous papillm 
01 tubercles (altogether absent in C. Scorpius) below the lateral 
line; large and irregularly formed white spots mark the sides, 
shaded around with deep carmine and a rich chocolate brown' 
the tinge towards the belly passing into rich orange ; the belly 
is also marked along the line to the tail with a row of roundish 
white spots; pectoral fins beautifully shaded and barred, spotted 
with white, the terminal portion and margins of a rich orange, 
resembling and emulating in beauty the rich colouring of the 
tiger-moth; irides of a deep golden yellow, tinged and marked 
with orange. The posterior portions of the rays of the pectoral 
and ventral fins are rough, with ciliated or minute spinous 
processes, which seem to be characteristic, and are not present 
in C. Scorpius or C. Buhalis, the rays in those species being 
smooth on both sides.” 
Crantz, the historian of Greenland, who calls this fish the 
Sea Scorpion, says that its resort is in the deeper water of the 
bays of that country, where it is fished for with long lines; 
the bait being a white bone, a glass bead, or piece of red 
cloth; and that it is esteemed as food; being also sometimes 
employed as a material for soup. 
I suppose it highly probable that the account which Lacepede 
has given us of the fish he calls Le Cotte Scorpion, and which 
m his day was judged to be the same with the Greenland 
Bullhead, was derived from observations that had been made 
on the habits of the last-named species; for they certainly will 
not apply to those of our more common Father-lasher. He 
says, in regard to its haunts, that they extend to both sides 
of the Atlantic, and so far north as to near the Arctic Circle. 
It is very active, and swift in the pursuit of prey, which it 
follows even to the surface; in which it differs from the 
generality of the fishes of this genus, but the fact is established 
on the evidence of later observers. Its victims are the blennies. 
