ACANTHOPTERYGII. 287 



pointed rays may penetrate, and at the most to the mucosity 

 with which they are invested, and which they cause to sink 

 into the wound, where its ravages will be in proportion to 

 the heat of the climate. 



This species inhabits all the warm parts of the Indian and 

 Pacific Ocean. 



TheMoNOCENTRis of Bloch, or the Lepisacanthtjs of 

 Lacepede, has not only the cheek mailed, but the entire of 

 the body. In this respect, it resembles peristedion with 

 which, otherwise, it has no points of similarity in conforma- 

 tion. One would rather be tempted, with Thunberg, to com- 

 pare it with Sciama, in consequence of the gibbous form of its 

 cranium, and of its two dorsals. But, independently of its 

 armature, its eight branchial rays, and palatine teeth, are suffi- 

 cient to show that it does not belong to that genus. Houttuyn 

 had ranged it among the gasterostei, and it must be allowed, 

 that it possesses their large spines to the ventrals, the first 

 dorsal being replaced by free spines, and that many gasterostei 

 are also partly mailed. But the gasterostei have but three rays 

 to the gills, and the form of their head is totally different. 



This fish has hitherto been found only in the seas of Japan. 



The gasterostei are the smallest of our fresh water fish, 

 and also pretty nearly the most common. 



There is not a stream or pond in which some of them are 

 not to be seen, and which does not even swarm with them at 

 certain seasons. The form of their head has nothing pecu- 

 liar, and one can scarcely at first imagine that they possess 

 the mailed cheek, for the suborbital which covers it is smooth, 

 and is not distinguished under the skin. Nevertheless, its 

 position, and the space which it covers, are the same as in 

 trigla, and the other genera of this family. 



The French name of this fish (epinoche), ours (stickle- 

 back), and those which it receives in most of the European 

 languages, are sufficiently explained by the spines with which 



