Volume 37, Plate XVIII / Ichthyology (Fish)

Ocellated Blenny, or Butterfly-Fish & Gattoruginous Blenny

Blennius ocellaris & Blennius gattorugine

1. The Ocellated Blenny, or Butterfly-Fish. The most remarkable of the Blennies for its ornamented dorsal fin, this Mediterranean species reaches six inches, frequents the shores, and feeds on smaller fishes, Crustacea, and sea-weeds, being held in no esteem as food. Only four have been taken in British seas; round and blunt of head, with two large fringed appendages at the eye and warty papillae, it is pale brown patched with reddish brown, the dorsal bearing a dark red-brown spot.
2. The Gattoruginous Blenny. Superabounding in the Mediterranean and more common than its relative in European seas, this Blenny is smaller in the British Channel, where Mr. Couch finds it off Cornwall. Its forehead slopes with a grooved vertex, branched fringed filaments rise behind each eye, and the slender two-rayed ventrals sit under the throat; dark purplish brown above and pale below, it keeps near rocks in four or five fathoms, is caught in crab-pots, and occasionally reaches eight or nine inches.