ARMED BULLHEAD. 85 



ACANTHOPTERYGIL WITH HARD CHEEKS. 



THE ARMED BULLHEAD, POGGE. 



LYRIE, SEA-POACHER, PLUCK, NOBLE. Scotland. 



Aspidophorus Europaus, Cuv. et VALENC. Hist. Nat. des Poiss. t. iv. p. 201. 

 Coitus cataphractus, LINNJEUS. BLOCH, pt. ii. pi. 39. 



,, ,, Armed Bullhead, PENN. Brit. Zool. vol. iii. p. 293, 



pi. 43. 



,, ,, P fl g e > DON. Brit. Fish. pi. 16. 



Cataphractus Schoneveldii , ,, FLEM. Brit. An. p. 216, pi. 155. 

 Aspidophorus cataphractus, ,, JENYNS, Brit. Vert. p. 346. 



Generic Characters. Body octagonal, covered with scaly plates; head 

 thicker than the body, with points and depressions above, flattened below ; 

 teeth in both jaws only, none on the vomer ; snout with recurved spines ; bran- 

 chiostegous rays 6 ; body tapering to the tail ; two dorsal fins, distinct. 



THIS very marked species was first described by Schone- 

 velde, a physician of Hamburgh, who published in 3624 a 

 catalogue of the aquatic animals of Silesia and Holstein. It 

 is now known to exist not only in the Baltic, but on the 

 coast of Norway, and in all the Northern Seas as far as 

 Greenland and Iceland. Mr. Couch says that it is not very 

 common in Cornwall ; and that, when found, it is most fre- 

 quently near the mouths of rivers, but occasionally taken far 

 out at sea. Montagu considered this species as more com- 

 mon on the eastern parts of the kingdom than on the shores 



