Note 55 — NOTES ON CERTAIN FISHES AND MARINE ANIMALS FOUND IN NORFOLK.

In the "Transactions of the Linnean Society," ii., p. 273, is an essay by Latham "On the various species of Sawfish," but he does not mention any British locality. So far as I am aware Browne's is the only record of the occurrence of this southern species in British waters, with the exception of a note in Fleming's "British Animals," p. 164, where it is stated on the authority of the late Dr. Walker's MS. "Adversaria" for 1769, that Pristis antiquorum is "found sometimes in Loch Long," but Fleming adds that he has met with no other proof of its ever having visited the British shores. Browne mentions in his eighth letter to Merrett that he sends him a "figure in little" of a Pristis which he received of a Yarmouth seaman, and is so precise in his statement that his fish was Pristis serra (the Pristis antiquorum of Cuvier), that his record cannot be disregarded. He specially guards against its being mistaken for the Sword-fish (Xiphias gladius), which has been taken on several occasions in our waters, and of which he gives some interesting particulars.