BTB. 
71 
into a bladder, and even the dorsal fins are often distended in 
the same manner. It appears to be caused from the terror of 
the fish, by the agony of which the air of the swimming bladder 
is driven into these membranous parts; and it is this circum- 
stance, which in a less degree may be observed in other fishes, 
that appears to have given occasion to some of the names by 
which the Bib has been designated. 
In shape this fish is the deepest of the British species of its 
family in proportion to its length, which does not often exceed 
a foot, although it sometimes exceeds this measure by a few 
inches. I have known it to weigh four pounds. The head and 
body are compressed, snout short and blunt, gape moderate, under 
jaw slightly the shortest, teeth in both, and in the palate; barb 
at the lower jaw. Eye rather large, not far from the snout: 
nostrils in a depression before them. The outline rises at first 
in a rounded form from the snout to the origin of the first dorsal 
fin, and does not begin to descend until it has reached the second 
dorsal, from which it slopes gradually to the tail. The greatest 
depth is at the vent, which is nearer the front than a third of 
the whole length, and almost under the root of the pectoral fin. 
Scales small, and easily lost: lateral line high at first, sloping 
down opposite the end of the pectoral fin. The first dorsal fin 
rises to a point, long enough to overlap a portion of the second. 
Pectorals pointed; tail slightly concave; first ray of the ventrals 
long and slender, reaching beyond the vent. Colour of the 
back reddish brown or dusky yellow; tides coppery, and so 
also in some instances the belly, sometimes also with irregular 
dusky shades. N ot unlrequently the sides are marked with bands 
of a deeper colour. A black spot at the origin of the pectoral 
fin. A border sometimes light colom eij, sometimes dark, round 
the extremity of the tail. 
