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S. porcus is a smaller species, not exceeding eight or ten 

 inches. It is found in the same localities as the other, and lies 

 in ambush under fuci and other marine plants, to dart on its 

 unsuspecting prey. The forbidding appearance of these fish 

 accords with their predatory and voracious habits. 



In the genus Pterois ofCuv. occurs the scorpaena volitans 

 of Gm., &c, which has pectoral fins larger than the body, 

 and like those of the ordinary flying fish, except that they 

 are feebler, and so deeply notched, that they appear in- 

 capable of raising the fish out of the water. The fishermen 

 of Ceylon, where this fish abounds, assured Mr. Bennett that 

 they never had seen it fly. 



Among the great number of extraordinary fish which live 

 in the North Pacific Ocean, on the coasts of Kamtschatka, of 

 the Aleutian Islands, of the land of Jesso, and towards the 

 islands south of Japan, there are few more singular than the 

 genus typical species BLEPSIAS. 



Steller made a blennius of this fish, although its ventral fins 

 have four and perhaps five rays. Pallas would have arranged 

 it among the trachini ; but assuredly it presents no title to 

 belong to that genus, for it has neither opercular spine nor 

 jugular ventrals, nor the first dorsal spine so small and so 

 dangerous. Its spiny preoperculum, its compressed head, its 

 mailed cheek, its palatine teeth, the simple, short, and half 

 separated rays of the lower part of its large pectorals, the 

 fleshy shreds which depend from its muzzle, approximate it, 

 on the contrary, to the scorpaenae. But from the scorpaenae 

 themselves it is distinguished by the five rays of its branchi- 

 ostegous membrane, and by its high dorsal fin, divided into 

 three unequal lobes, like that of the hemitriptera, while its 

 compressed head separates it from this latter genus. 



Nothing, therefore, was so simple and necessary as to form 

 a particular genus of it. Since by its forms it is isolated from 

 the rest of nature, it should therefore be isolated in a method, 



