Dory

Dory, any fish .of the Acanthopterygian family Cyttidee, with two genera (Zeus and Cyttus), from the seas of the temperate zones. The body is elevated and compressed, with minute scales or naked, and in the first-named genus there are bony plates at the base of the dorsal and anal fins and along the.abdomen. Zeus has six species, all excellent food-fish. The best known is Z. faber, the John Dory, from the Mediterranean and the coasts of Western Europe, and occasionally found on the

British coast. It is usually of a metallic yellow, or brownish olive, with a black spot on each side, said to be the marks left by St. Peter's fingers when he took the tribute-money from its mouth. The membrane between the spines of the first part of the dorsal fin is produced into long filaments. It is very voracious, and a specimen 22 inches long is recorded by Couch.