23 
TRUMPET-FISH. 
that purpose, although it is admitted that what there is is of 
excellent quality. Risso speaks of it as not common about 
Nice; and Rafinesque, at Palermo, and Dr. Gulia, in his “Fauna 
of Malta,” make no mention of it; which omissions may in 
part be explained by the information we obtain, that usually 
it is only procured after stormy weather. 
The occurrence of the Trumpet-fish in Britain has only been 
in a few instances, of which two at least were in Cornwall. 
The first of these was thrown on shore in St. Austle Bay in 
the year 1804, and came into the hands of William Rashleigh, 
Esq., of the neighbouring mansion of Menabilly, who caused 
a drawing to be taken of it of the size of nature, and from 
which our own is a copy. It appears that Donovan had pos- 
sessed two other British examples, from which he derived his 
figure, as above referred to; and the fragment of another was 
found on the beach in Mount’s Bay in the year 1853, but it 
was too imperfect for preservation. 
From the small mouth of this fish, with the absence of 
teeth, we may conclude that its food is the entromostraca, or 
minute animals of a variety of shapes that people the ocean 
as insects do the land; while its little aptitude for extensive 
motion will account for its limited wanderings, and consequently 
for its rare appearance in unaccustomed places. 
The ordinary size of this fish is from four to five inches in 
length; and the following notes of other particulars are derived 
from a description made from the example taken in St. Austle 
Bay, as before referred to, at the time of its capture. “It 
was five inches long, and from back to the belly one inch 
and two eighths, in thickness three eighths of an inch; it 
weighed six drachms. It was red on the back, the colour 
becoming more faint on the sides, and the belly was silvery. 
The proboscis, which to the eye measured an inch and five 
eighths, was formed of a bony substance, which was continued 
along the back, where it terminated in a sharp point, spreading 
in the middle, where it makes an obtuse angle, just above a 
small fin behind the gills. The mouth, which is at the end 
of the proboscis, is covered with a valve that is fastened to 
the under part. The pectoral fin is small; it has two small 
dorsal fins, the former one having a very long spine, under 
which spine (and joined to it) are small projections like the 
