44 
GREATEB WEEVER. 
understanding that they belonged to two separate, although 
kindred species; both of which are now recognised as being 
found in the Mediterranean, although, until of late, they had 
since his time been confounded together. Conscious of the 
presence of the long and piercing spines with which the 
superior portion of their gill-covers are armed, they scarcely 
wait to see the near approach of danger. The apprehension 
of it is enough to call them into action; and with a dread 
of what may follow, if we may credit the poet Oppian, the 
fishes which happen to be near give way, and suffer them to 
march along without attempting to obtrude upon their course: 
“Weevers, whose march the timorous shoals obey, 
Divide their ranlts, and humbly give the way.” 
R. 2 
Their usual haunts are near the bottom on sandy ground, 
commonly at no great distance from the land; hut I have 
known this fish taken in a floating net over thirty-five fathoms 
of water, and when several have been thus caught, it has 
always been in the early morning cast of the nets, as if they 
thus mounted aloft only in the darkness of the night. A fish- 
erman expressed to me his belief that he had even seen this 
fish spring above the surface. Its more familiar habit, however, 
appears to be to conceal itself in the sand, where its variegated 
colour on all the parts exposed must prevent it from being 
readily discovered. A particular organization of the blood- 
vessels of the tail appears to provide for the development of 
organic sensibility in that organ, for the purpose of enabling 
the fish to excavate a place and cover itself over; as I have 
noticed also in some other fishes that are possessed of a similar 
faculty of hiding themselves, of which the Launce and generally 
the flat-fishes f Pleuronectidce J are instances. In this position, 
the head only of the Weever appears above the sand, but the 
fish is ready to spring up on the slightest notice, and to 
move away with great celerity. In this situation of concealment 
it may chance to be left uncovered by the ebbing tide; but 
it is highly retentive of life, even when caught with a net or 
line, and therefore it suffers nothing by being left thus exposed; 
and I have been informed of an instance where a dog, by 
