376 Classification of Fishes 



the species it represented, Ostracion tricornis, which should in 

 strictness have been Ostracion tricorne, as ovrpaKiov, a little 

 box, is a neuter diminutive. The Nagg's Head fish he named 

 Ostracion quadricornis . The right name now is Ostracion tri- 

 cornis, because the name tricornis stands first on the page in 

 Linnaeus' work, but Ostracion quadricornis has been more often 

 used by subsequent authors because it is more truthful as a 

 descriptive phrase. In 1798, Lacepede changed the name of 



FIG. 240. Horned Trunkfish, Ostracion cornutum Linnaeus. East Indies. 



(After Bleeker.) 



Lister's fish to Ostracion listeri, a needless alteration which 

 could only make confusion. 



In 1 8 1 8, Dr. Samuel Latham Mitchill, receiving a specimen 

 from below New Orleans, thought it different from tricornis 

 and quadricornis and called it Ostracion sexcornutus; Dr. Hol- 

 ard, of Paris, in 1857, named a specimen Ostracion maculatus, 

 and at about the same time Bleeker named two others from 

 Africa which seem to be the same thing, Ostracion guineensis 

 and Ostracion gronovii. Lastly, Poey calls a specimen from 

 Cuba Acanthostracion polygonius, thinking it different from all 

 the rest, which it may be, although my own judgment is other- 

 wise. This brings up the question of the generic name. Among 

 trunkfishes there are four-angled and three-angled kinds, and 

 of each form there are species with and without horns and 

 spines. The original Ostracion of Linnaeus we may interpret 

 as being Ostracion cubicus of the coasts of Asia, a species similar 

 to the Ostracion rhinorhynchus . This species, cubicus, we call 

 the type species of the genus, as the Nagg's Head specimen of 

 Artedi was the type specimen of the species quadricornus, and 

 the one that was used for Lister's figure the type specimen of 

 tricornis. 



Ostracion cubicus is a four-angled species, and when the 



