ACANTHOPTERYGII. 283 



whose best claim to attention should be to represent the pro- 

 ductions of that nature in their true relations. 



The name of Blepsias, given by M. Cuvier, is one of the 

 very many left us by the ancients, without any mark whereby 

 their application can be fixed. 



Of the habits of this genus nothing very particular can be 

 remarked. 



The apistus is analogous to scorpaena in the undivided 

 dorsal fin and the palatine teeth ; but the pectoral rays, 

 much less numerous, are all branched. The long spine on the 

 suborbital, and another at the preoperculum, by the mobility 

 of the bones to which they appertain, become, when they are 

 inclined from the cheek, weapons of offence, of which these 

 fish make use at the moment when it is least expected, and 

 they are so much the more dangerous, as they can scarcely 

 be perceived when in a state of repose. From this circum- 

 stance their generic name is derived, awHTTog (perfidious.) 



The apistus Israelitorum flies like the dactylopteri and the 

 prionoti. M. Ehrenberg has observed it near Tor, and every 

 time that the sea was agitated some of them fell into his 

 vessel. As it is the only flying fish of the Red Sea, and is 

 particularly abundant on that coast of the desert where the 

 Israelites wandered for so many years, this learned traveller 

 conceived that what we read in Exodus concerning the 

 quails, by which for a certain period that people were fed, 

 was applicable to this fish. If this be the case, the inter- 

 preters must have translated by the word quail, a Hebrew 

 word, which originally had a sense totally different. 



The Arabs name it gherad el bahr, which signifies sea-locust* 



The Apistus fusco-vir ens, observed and depicted in Am- 

 boyna by MM. Quoy and Gaymard, is supposed in that 

 country to inflict very dangerous wounds, which is attributed, 

 but erroneously without doubt, to a sort of poison with which 

 the skin that covers the spine is invested. 



