Identifier: sketchesofnatura00tenn (find matches)
Title: Sketches of the natural history of Ceylon : with narratives and anecdotes illustrative of the habits and instincts of the mammalia, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, &c. : including a monograph of the elephant and a description of the modes of capturing and training it with engravings from original drawings
Year: 1868 (1860s)
Authors: Tennent, James Emerson, Sir, 1804-1869 Metcalf Collection (North Carolina State University). NCRS
Subjects: Zoology Elephants
Publisher: London : Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts
Contributing Library: NCSU Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: NCSU Libraries

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
y because they appear to have no peculiarfunction, as in flying fishes, or in those where the spinesof the fins are weapons of offence. They attain to thelength of twelve inches, and to a weight of about twopounds; they live on small marine animals, and by theSinghalese the flesh (of some at least) is considered goodfor table. Nine or ten species are known to occur in Chap. X.) THE SCAEUS HARID. 335 the East Indian Seas, and of these the one figuredabove is, perhaps, the most common. Another species known to occur on the coasts of Cey-lon, is the Scorpcena miles, Bennett, or Pterois miles,Griinther^, of which Bennett has given a figure^, but it isnot altogether correct in some particulars. In the fishes of Ceylon, however, beauty is not con-fined to the brilliancy of their tints. In some, as in theScarus harid, Forsk^, the arrangement of the scales isso graceful, and the effect is so heightened by modi-fications of colour, as to present the appearance of tes-sellation, or mosaic work.
Text Appearing After Image:
SCAEUS HAEID,After Bennett, Fresh-water Fishes,—Of the fresh-water fish, whichinhabit the rivers and tanks, so very little has hithertobeen known to naturalists*, that of nineteen drawings The fish from the Sea of Pi-nang, described by Dr. Cantorwith this name (Catal. Mai. Fish,p. 42), is again different, and be-longs to a third species. ^ Fishes of Ceylon, PI. ix. * This is the fish figured byBennett as Sparus pepo. Fishes of Ceylon, Plate xxviii. * In extenuation of the littlethat is knowai of the fresh-waterfishes of Ceylon, it may be ob-served that very few oi them areused at table by Europeans, andthere is therefore no stimulus onthe part of the natives to catch 336 FISHES. (Chap. X. sent home by Major Skinner in 1852, although speci-mens of well-known genera. Colonel Hamilton Smithpronounced nearly the whole to be new and undescribedspecies. Of eio-ht of these, which were from the Mahawelli-ganga, and caught in the vicinity of Kandy, five werecarps ; two were Leucisci, and one

Note About Images