Date: Sunday f 20, 2012
Atherine Sea Fish
The body moderately lengthened, and along each side a silvery band from the gill-covers to the tail. Mouth a little protractile. Dorsal fins widely separated, both with rays. Ventral fins behind the pectorals, (abdominal.) Linnaeus confounded all the species together under the name of A. hepseius, which, as now defined, is a species not known in Great Britain.
This little fish is commonly found in small scattered companies in harbours and bays where a sandy bottom is mingled with rough ground, and especially where there are streams of fresh water flowing into the salt, but we believe there is no instance of its entering fresh water for any continued length of
time, and it appears never to go to a considerable distance from the shore. It inhabits the temperate regions of Europe, its most southern limits being the Island of Madeira. In the Mediterranean it is common, and is perhaps the species mentioned in a cursory manner by Oppian. It is also more abundant on the west and south of England than in the north or in Scotland, where, however, in the Firth of Forth, it was discovered by Dr. Parnell, so that we conclude its not being met with on the east coast of England, northward of Dover, is rather caused by the nature of the ground than the coldness of the climate.
Yet there is reason to believe that this fish is in a high degree susceptible of the influences of cold, for besides that it goes into deeper water or more sheltered places in winter, I have been informed of instances where, in the shallow waters of a harbour, numbers have been surprised by sudden frost, so as to be left dead on the shore. Atherines sometimes assemble about the ends of piers, where they take a bait readily, but this would be tedious work for a fisherman who labours for profit, and they are usually sought after with a net formed of fine twine, by which large quantities are sometimes caught.
Three small boat loads have been taken at a single haul. The pretty look of this fish, and its resemblance at first sight to the true Smelt, Osmerus eperlanus, although of a different family, has secured for it a ready sale at our fashionable watering-places, but among writers on natural history there is much diversity of opinion as regards its excellency for the table.
By some it has been highly prized, especially when large with roe, and fried without removing the entrails, and we have Montagu's authority for its excellency in this condition, but it has been so decidedly rejected by others as to have afforded cause for supposing that even its name of Atherine has been given it on account of its worthlessness. It seems certain that when out of season the multitude of its small-pointed bones are a material drawback from the pleasure of eating it.
I have found the roe enlarged into the full size from the middle of March to the end of August, and the spawn is contained in a single lobe, which is enclosed in a black covering of peritoneum, and has its origin near the backbone, from which it passes forward across the intestine, a little before the vent.
The air-bladder is not situated far forward, but is rather large, and passes beyond the vent towards the tail. In collecting them for observation I have found many more females than males. Mr. Thompson gives the greatest length of an Irish example as seven inches and three fourths, and a Cornish specimen has measured but a little short of this, but a usual size is five or six inches.
The form of the body moderately lengthened and slender, round over the back, so as to be only in a moderate degree compressed on the sides, the body covered with large scales, lateral line scarcely to be distinguished, but passing along the middle of the characteristic silvery stripe, which, in a fish of the larger dimensions given above, was one fifth of an inch wide, the body being an inch in depth, and this stripe runs straight from the origin of the pectoral fin to the tail.
There is an appearance of transparency in the bodv, but this is an optical deception, and no inward part can be discerned from without. The head is flat above, but compressed at the sides, eyes large and lateral, the snout short before them, upper jaw arched, under jaw seen from below, shaped like a horse shoe, angle of the mouth depressed, teeth small and numerous.
Vent about the middle of the body, as measured from the snout to the fork of the tail. Dorsal fins two, separate, the first beginning a little behind the end of the pectoral, having eight rays, the first of which is at the center of gravity of the fish. Second dorsal and anal opposite each other, the first with thirteen and the second with seventeen rays, anterior portion of these fins elevated, and the posterior margin narrow. Pectoral fin high on the side, superior rays longest, fourteen in number.
Ventral fins with six rays. Tail divided, with eighteen rays. Colour a greenish transparent grey above, sometimes tinged with pink near the silvery stripe, transverse bands or lines across the scales on the back, I have seen the second dorsal, anal, and caudal fins dotted over with small round spots.
Related Products And Free Videos
More Sea Fish Articles
... choice and yet, while it rejects nothing which the Cod might swallow there seems to be that difference of appetite between these fishes, that the stomach of the Haddock will best repay the examination of the naturalist whose interest is in the collection of shells, of which he will thus secure some species ...
... of red, brown, or orange. It is probable that in all the Wrasses the teeth are shed with regularity. They are hollow at the root, and, in the Corkwing especially, each one rises through its own membranous sheath to supply the place of another that is about to be thrown off. The depression referred to ...
... last named country and England through the year, and at times, especially in the autumn and winter, it is even abundant. Its chief resort is in rocky places, where it finds its congenial food in the multitude of crustaceous animals and small fishes which frequent such neighbourhoods, but sometimes they ...
... obtained. They continued thus for a week, at the end of which they had disappeared, and, although carefully looked for, they have not been seen since. The examples then obtained were conveyed to London, and by examination of Cuvier's "History of Fishes," in the library of Mr. Yarrell, no doubt existed ...
... Forkbeard Lesser Launce Larger Launce Lesser Grey Mullet Ling Long Eough Dab Long Flounder Long Finned Grey Mullet Mackarel Midge Muller's Topknot Megrim Plaice Pole Poutassou Pollack Power Rock Cook Sail Fluke Scale rayed Wrass Short-snouted Launce Smear Dab Solenette Sole Torsk Trumpet-fish Thompson's ...
... preserved in pickle, and in this condition when boiled they form a very acceptable dish. The usefulness of this fish has also been more widely extended of late by the employment of the oil extracted from the liver in several diseases, in some of which it is found an important remedy. The first notice ...
... food from the ground. In addition to several sorts of bivalve shells, and one or two species of aphrodite, stones are found, of no small size, that have been swallowed because of the encrusting lepralia or corallines that covered them, and when the latter have been digested, the stones are probably rejected ...
... the snout, jaws almost equal, gape narrow, teeth in regular order, but often in irregular stages of development, first plate of the gill covers serrated. Large scales on the cheeks and body. Lateral line nearer the back, bending down surhlenly opposite the termination of the dorsal fin. This fin is furnished ...
... the Haddock has occurred in at least one other instance, and is the rather to be excused as in its general form it bears a nearer likeness to the last named fish than to a well fed ordinary Cod, although indeed in colour it differs greatly from both. The peculiar habits of the Dorse as distinguished from ...
... rocks on which the Eddystone lifts its light, and which consequently are several miles from land, are uniformly of a pale green, with some shades or lines of brown, but in other particulars, and especially of form, they are not to be distinguished from the common species. The younger fish are of the brighter ...
... Ireland, and Scandinavia, it is more abundant than even with us through the Mediterranean, even to the mouth of the Nile, and southward it is known at the Cape of Good Hope. Its choice of residence is in the neighbourhood of the shore, where it is most frequently seen in harbours, especially where the ...
... Mediterranean. Unlike the Corkwing, I have not found it to frequent tidal harbours, and it appears to prefer deeper water than the shallows of the sea afford. It takes a bait, but is most frequently caught in the crab pots, which it enters for the purpose of nibbling the baits suspended within them. It ...
... pro portions, and the eye slightly higher on the cheek. First dorsal having four spinous rays, nearer to the second than its own breadth, second dorsal with nine rays, pectoral placed high on the side, with fifteen raystr anal ten, the last two from one root, ventral six, the first simple, caudal fin ...
Long Finned Grey Mullet Sea Fish
... coast has recognised it. According to Dr. Gunther the height of the body is contained five times and one fourth to five times and three fourths in the total length, the length of the head five times, snout broad and depressed, cleft of the mouth more than twice as broad as deep, eyes with the rudiments ...
... compressed, moderately lengthened. The usual weight from twelve to fifteen pounds, and very rarely exceeding twenty, but our description and figure were obtained from an example that weighed twenty four pounds. Under jaw protruding beyond the upper, numerous small teeth in both, and strong teeth in the ...
... ending close to the caudal fin. Colour on the back brown, sides much lighter, belly white, eye yellow, lighter yellow on the gill covers. A dark spot on the upper border of the origin of the dorsal fin , along the base of the anal fins a broad white band, but nut at the margin, and this remained unaltered ...
... the males are said to excel the females in this respect. Along the back it is dark, (Risso says bluish green,) the belly blue or whitish. From the snout a variously-coloured line runs through the eyes to the middle of the sides, that portion which is on the cheeks saffron coloured, passing into black, ...
... more elongated, form and rounder make, from the former also in having a serrated gill-cover. From the Rock Cook it may be readily distinguished, besides its greater size by its longer form, larger mouth, rounder tail, and by the spot at the root of the tail being further back. The eye is larger than in ...
... anal three firm and eight others, of the tail fourteen rays. The length of the head as compared with that of the body and tail, is as one to three, the proportion in the Common Grey Mullet being as one to four, the body is also deeper in proportion than in M. capito, being equal to the length of the head, ...
... from some remarkable very dark spots on the back and dorsal fin, in many cases amounting to five, and I have not known them less than three. One is at the origin of the dorsal fin, and is sometimes wanting, the others are at the hindward part of the back, extending up on the dorsal fin, except the last, ...
... being formed principally of one long and stout spine, which is capable of some motion upward and downward, but cannot be raised upright. On its under side is a channel, on each side of which is a row of teeth. In front of this larger spine is a very small one, and behind it three others. The second dorsal ...