DUSKY SKULPIN. 
179 
kinds of Skulpins afford good food, but they find no place 
at British tables. 
The Dusky Skulpin is known on every part of the coasts 
of the British Islands, as also in the North Sea and Mediter- 
ranean. 
I have known this fish to measure nine inches in length, 
but usually it is not so large. The general proportions as in 
the Yellow Skulpin, except that the head in front of the eyes 
is not so long. The most remarkable difference, however, is to 
be found in the comparative length of the rays of the dorsal 
fins, and in the colours, which, in the Dusky Skulpin, however 
prone to vary, are never like those of the Yellow Skulpin, 
either in tints or arrangement. Sometimes the prevailing colour 
is olive green, sometimes brown, dark, or light copper, Muth 
mottllngs which occasionally assume the form of bars or bands 
across the back; and an example has been seen from the deeper 
water at the mouth of the British Channel, in which the 
upper surface of the body was covered Avith beautiful ocellated 
spots, the second dorsal having also a broad line of the pre- 
vailing colour of the body. But in no instance has there been 
observed a tendency to the resplendent blue which adorns the 
sides, cheeks, and fins of the Yellow Skulpin. But the more 
remarkable dissimilarity is found in the extent of the rays in 
the first dorsal fin, the first and longest of which does but 
little exceed, if at all, those of the second dorsal. It is 
common also for this first ray to be bound down on the fin, 
as if incapable of becoming of longer grorvth. This, however, 
may be the character of the female only, as is the undoubting 
belief of some naturalists; and in justice to the subject, it 
must be noticed that instances occur in which individuals may 
be supposed to be in the condition of passing from the partially 
developed to the perfect state, or from that of the undeveloped 
male, resembling a female, to the state in which the male 
characters are fully represented. 
The earliest manifestation of this asserted development is 
seen in a lengthening of the first ray of the first dorsal fin, 
to the extent of a fifth part of its ordinary length, as measured 
in the Dusky Skulpin. But in another example, Avhich had 
attained the length of seven inches and a fourth, this first ray 
was so much elongated as to reach backward more than half 
