S2 
COMBER WRASS. 
Jago, in Ray’s Synopsis Pisoium, pi. 2, f. 5. 
This fish must be distinguished horn another Comber, 
Serranus cabrilla, in our “History of British Fishes,” vol. i, 
p. 195. The only author besides Jago to which we can refer 
with confidence concerning it is Pennant, who has given a 
figure of an example he had obtained from Cornwall, and of 
which he says: — “It was of a slender form, the back, fins, and 
tail red, the belly yellow; the sides marked beneath the side 
line with a smooth even stripe, from the gills to the tail, of a 
silvery colour; the tail rounded at the end. The dorsal fin 
had twenty spiny and eleven soft rays, pectoral fourteen, ventral 
five, anal three spiny and soft, the caudal fourteen. 
Dr. Gunther supposes that this fish may be the Lahrus 
Donomni of Cuvier, which is described as having “the height 
of the body equal to the length of the head, and contained 
thrice and three fourths in the total; length of the snout one 
third of that of the head. Dorsal fin with twenty firm rays, 
and ten or eleven soft; anal twelve rays, of which three are 
firm.” The colours are said by Valenciennes to be on the 
upper parts and fins green, a silvery band along the sides; 
head with some irregular blue lines. 
This description scarcely leaves the subject more clear than 
before, but I will here introduce a fish to the naturalist, that 
if not the Comber Wrass, at least must be regarded as different 
from any other we have to describe as British. It was caught 
in a crab-pot, and measured in length five inches and a half. 
Head before the eyes lengthened and pointed, longer in pro- 
portion than in the Ballan AFrass; gape wide; lips very flcsliv: 
upper jaw a little beyond the lower- teeth as in the Common 
Wrass; eye large; back rising to the dorsal fin; body comjn-essed. 
