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124 British harbour. Five or six such cases are mentioned by Mr. Yarrell. On these visits of courtesy seems to depend the claim of the species to a place among British Fishes.

4. Vomerina. A few genera, rather numerous in species, (which amount, according to Prince Bonaparte, to sixty-five), are grouped together here, distinguished by having the body short, very deep, and very thin; a smooth, satiny skin, destitute of any apparent scales; the rays of the dorsal, anal, and ventrals, often prolonged into slender filaments. The species are chiefly found in the tropical seas, and none are recorded as British, or even European.

5. Zeina, The form in this group is thin, deep, and short, as in the preceding; but the mouth is greatly projectile, and furnished with numerous small teeth. The dorsal is single (in most of the genera) and is not preceded by any free spines. There are about forty species, of which three are marked as British. One of these is the John Doree, (Zeus faber, .) eminent in all ages for the flavour of its flesh. The ancients honoured it with the name of the supreme demon in their mythology, (Ζεὺς, Jupiter), in token of their estimation of it; and in modern times, the prince of epicures, Quin, disdained not to make a journey from Bath to Plymouth for the sole purpose of eating it in perfection. Medieval superstition assigns other honours to this fish: there is a round spot of black on each side in the middle of its yellow body, which is accounted for by the legend which makes the Doree the fish caught by the apostle Peter to pay the tribute shekel, or by the rival story, equally true,