130 
KATf’s BREAM. 
and tlie circumstances usually attending it, seem to imply that 
its more usual resort is in the deeper portions of the sea, where 
the temperature is colder, or at least more equable, than in 
shallower water; which circumstance may help to explain how 
it happens that it has been found within an extensive range 
of apparently opposite situations. 
An example in the British Museum was brought from the 
Cape of Good Hope, and a large portion of the British specimens 
were obtained in the north of England, Ireland, and Scotland. 
Professor Nilsson also speaks of this fish as scarcely rare in 
the south and west of Sweden, although the instances are of 
sufficient interest to have secured the mention of the particular 
dates at which they were obtained, as well as the weather 
during which they were thrown on the coast, and which, in 
every instance was severely stormy. Pive such occurrences are 
noticed by him to have taken place in different years between 
1825 and 1850, and from the 1st. of November to the 15th 
of December. An instance occurred, within my oum knowledge, 
where a specimen was taken with the hand by a servant girl, 
who saw it in the water close to the beach, as it was about 
to die from no obvious cause; and of this example, before we 
conclude, we shall give a particular description, as it remains 
a question whether it was not in reality a distinct species from 
the better known Brama Bail. 
Of the more characteristic habits of this fish we know little, 
and Risso limits his information to the facts of the seasons of 
its appearance, and that it is valued as food; in which last 
particular he is supported by Rafinesque, if Cuvier’s supposition 
shall prove correct, when he says that the Lepodus saragus, 
described by him, is the same as Ray’s Bream. 
So deeply impressed on my mind was the opinion of the 
probability that two specimens which might have been supposed 
examples of the Brama Raii, were, in reality, of different 
species, that I ventured to communicate to a local Society 
of Natural History (of Penzance) a paper on the subject, 
with figures, and the opinion thus formed has received some 
support from the observations of two eminent naturalists of 
Sweden, whose evidence will be produced at some length. 
In my own paper, here referred to, the example of Ray’s 
Bream is thus described: — The specimen measured twenty-three 
