208 



FISHES OF AUSTRALIA. 



CHAPTER XI. 



The Dragonets or Skulpins- The Cling-Fishes The Blennies The 

 Frog Fishes Zoarcoid Fishes The Australian Rockling -Ribbon-Fishes 

 Angler-Fishes or Fishing-Frogs The Leatherjackets or Filefishes 

 Box-Fishes or Trunk-Fishes The Toad-Fishes Sea-Porcupines The 

 Sun Fishes Lung-Fishes. 



THE DRAGONETS OR SKULPINS. 



(Family : CaUion\iuidfc.~] 



THESE are small marine fishes. Some of them are very 

 beautifully marked ; particularly in many cases the males. 

 Mature males of a number of the species often have the 

 fin-rays prolonged into filaments, the fin-membranes being 

 brightly ornamented. There is a large, usually hooked and 

 barbed spine, on each side of the head, at the angle of the 

 preoperculum. The gill-openings are very narrow, being 

 generally reduced to a small opening or "foramen" at the 



Fig 73. MOTTLED DRAGOXET (('(lUinii.tjinux calauropomus). Female. 



back of the head, on the upper side of the operculum or 

 gill-cover (opercle). 



Quite a number of species of Dragonets are known to 

 inhabit the waters around the coastline of Australia. One 

 species well-known in Port Jackson (because of the offensive 

 smell exhaled from the gill-openings) is the Stink-Fish 

 (Callionymus curvicornis}. It is a mottled, greyish, sandy- 

 coloured fish; and, glanced at from above, appears something 

 like what it is often mistaken for a small Flathead. How-- 



