220 
SHANNY. 
MULLIGRANOC. SMOOTH BLK:SNY. 
FhoUs, 
Alauda non cristata, 
Blennius plwlis, 
t( if 
Blennie pholis, 
Pholis IcEvis, 
Blennius pholis, 
(( (( 
« M 
JoysTOU; Table 17, f. 4. 
■Willoughby; p. 133. 
Linnasus. Cuvier. Bloch; pi. 71, f. 2. 
Donovan ; pi. 71. 
Lacepede. Risso. 
Fleming; Br. Animals, p. 207. 
Jenyns; Manual, p. 382. 
Yaerell; British Fishes, vol. i, p. 260. 
Gunther; Cat. Br. M., vol. iii, p. 226. 
The Shanny is -well known in the Mediterranean, and is 
common along the borders of the British Channel; but it 
becomes more scarce on the east coasts of the kingdom, and is 
rarely found in the north of Scotland. Nilsson also says it is 
scarce on the south-west coast of Norway. It is nowhere met 
with at a considerable depth of water; but its haunts for the 
most part are in rocky places from which the tide retires to 
a small distance; and there it hides itself under a stone in a 
moist situation where weeds abound; or, more frequently, as 
the tide goes out, it creeps into a hole or chink in the rock, 
where it remains for an hour or two until released by the rising 
again of the sea. Its head in this situation is always outward, 
as this position affords it the opportunity of discerning the 
approach of an enemy; on the discovery of which it withdraws 
itself from sight with a backward motion to a deeper part of 
its retreat, by the help of its pectoral and ventral fins. 
It is through an instinctive feeling of pleasure as well as of 
safety that this fish will quit the water for a time; and it is 
scarcely to he doubted that by this means also it secures a 
renewal of health and vigour, for when its resort is in a pool 
of the rocks from which the sea cannot retire, it climbs to some 
