436 Pareioplitae, or Mailed-cheek Fishes 



reach a high degree of venom. The flesh in all these species 

 is wholesome, and when the dorsal spines are cut off the fishes 

 sell readily in the markets. These fishes lie hidden in cavities 

 of the reefs, being scarcely distinguishable from the rock itself. 

 (See Fig. 168, Vol. I.) 



The black Emmydrichthys vulcanus of Tahiti lies in crevices 

 of lava, and could scarcely be distinguished from an irregular 

 lump of lava-rock. 



FIG. 374. Black Nohu, or Poison-fish, Emmydrichthys vulcanus Jordan. A species 

 with stinging spines, showing resemblance to lumps of lava among which it 

 lives. Family Scorpcenidce. From Tahiti. 



A related form, Erosa erosa, the daruma-okose of Japan, is 

 monstrous in form but often beautifully colored with crimson 

 and gray. 



In Congiopus the very strong dorsal spines begin in the 

 head, and the mouth is very small. Dr. Gill makes this genus 

 the type of a distinct family, Congiopodida. 



Besides these, very many genera and species of small poison- 

 fishes, called okose in Japan, abound in the sandy bays from 

 Tokio to Hindostan and the Red Sea. Some of these are hand- 

 somely colored, others are fantastically formed. Paracentro- 

 pogon rubripinnis and Minous adamsi are the commonest species 

 in Japan. Trachicephalus uranoscopus abounds in the bays of 

 hina. Snyderina yamanokami occurs in Southern Japan. 



But few fossil Scorp&nidce are recorded. Scorp&nopterus 

 siluridens, a mailed fish from the Vienna Miocene, with a warty 

 head, seems to belong to this group, and Ampheristus toliapicus, 



