PILOT FISH. 
lii 
similar to the one now related. — (Griffith’s Cuvier, p 637.) 
The Blue Shark is in the summer a common fish in the 
west of England, but in no instance has the Pilot Fish been 
seen to accompany it there. 
The example from which principally our description is drawn, 
was of more than the usual size; its length being fifteen inches 
and a quarter, and its girth eight inches, at the front of the 
dorsal fin. The general form is round and plump; scales on 
the body small, with marks resembling scales on the first gill- 
cover; the hinder gill-cover regularly but slightly striated. 
Forehead short and rounded; under jaw a little the longei-; 
teeth numerous, slender, thickly set, with a vacancy at the 
symphysis. The eye prominent, and in one instance one eye 
differed from the other, both in size and colour. Lateral line 
but slightly bent, although in two other examples this line 
passed off high at first, and became bent down opposite the 
origin of the dorsal fin, ending in an elevated ridge close to 
the tail; a deep notch above and below the root of the caudal 
fin. Dorsal fin single, beginning at the middle of the body, 
more elevated at its origin, but lower in its progress; in front 
of it a ridge bearing spines, three in number, but probably a 
fourth hid in the skin; and in another example there were five 
spines, the first of them concealed. The anal fin begins opposite 
about the middle of the dorsal; and in front of it a single 
spine, but in a smaller specimen two spines. A small mark of 
a corset near the pectoral fin, which fin is pointed, round below; 
ventrals long and wide; tail forked. Colour blue, of different 
degrees of intensity in different examples — from brilliant sky 
blue with green tints, to very dark; white below, the body 
encircled with five deep blue bands. Caudal fin above and 
below tipped with white, as also the first rays of the dorsal 
and anal fins. The dorsal fin has twenty-nine rays, the anal 
eighteen, pectoral sixteen, ventral five, caudal twenty-one, besid.es 
fifteen false rays above and below. 
