90 DIODONTID.E. 



and thickness of tlie head and shoulders, stern impending eyebrows, 

 and dark gloomy colours, combine in giving to this fish a most repulsive 

 aspect. I cannot find that it is ever eaten even by the poorest classes : 

 and the name of " Sapo," or the Toad, expresses something of its ugliness 

 of aspect, alluding more particularly to the flatness or depression of the 

 head and back, and width of mouth. 



Though long well-known to virtuosos and collectors, and admirably 

 figured long ago from a stuffed specimen by Willughby, this species of 

 Diodon seems to have been ill-understood by modern ichthyologists ; 

 owing principally to Linnseus, who, having characterised it properly in his 

 tenth edition, was induced, unfortunately, by Gronovius in his twelfth 

 to reduce it, and another probably distinct species, the D. echinaius 

 of his tenth edition, to the varieties |3. and y. of his D. Atinga, a 

 much smaller species, " of the size of a rather large goose-egg," says 

 Artedi ; and which is figured by Willughby t. I. 8, f. 1, and proba- 

 bly f. 2.* Artedi mentions that he saw the specimen which he describes 

 " in the Green Dragon at Stepney :" and few astrologers or Sidrophels 

 of former times were, like such places of resort for mariners, unfurnished 

 with at least some species of the tribe ; forming a pendant to the stuffed 

 Alligator, which fills so conspicuous a place amongst the mysterious ap- 

 paratus of a conjurer''s penetralia.-^ This might indeed be rather owing 

 to the ease with which the skins of these fishes are removed from their 

 Ijodies and preserved, than to the local abundance of the species any- 

 where. Yet it is singular that, of the country of a species so long ago 

 well known and figured as the subject of this chapter, I can find no more 

 certain record than Linnseus' vague " Habitat in India." Unless indeed 

 quite recently, it has not been detected in the Mediterranean, or on any 

 of the coasts of Europe ; and in any case it can scarcely be a common 

 species elsewhere, or this uncertainty would not exist. Madeira, therefore, 

 for the present seems its proper native country. 



^lian \ alone, amongst the old Greek writers, mentions by the name 



* Cuvier (Mem. Mus. IV.) refers to both these figiires of Willughby for his D. rkmlatus. His 

 D. tiffrinus with unspotted fins, is better for the present kept distinct from the subject of this chap- 

 ter, although he blends their synonyms : quoting under it, Will. t. I. n°. 7. with the remark, " II 

 ne differe guere du tigre que par ses nageoires, qui sont mouchetees comme le reste de son dos." 

 Meantime the older synonyms of Artedi and Linnaeus are quite safe for the present fish ; being 

 both founded on Willughby's excellent figure t. I. n. 7. with spotted fins. 



i* The association between wonder at uncouth or strange forms, and awe, arresting first, and 

 chaining the attention by the sense, and so rendering the mind an easy and obedient captive to the 

 purpose, has not been lost on these sagacious practisers. Another fonn of the self-same selfish 

 charlatanism has evinced itself by an affected or loose-reasoning contempt for all outward accesso- 

 rifs, in a diluted age, characterized by its shallow, mere materialistic modes of argimicnt and 

 thought. 



X Lib. xii. cap. 25. — " The Toxotcs, which is in the same (Red) Sea, resembles an Echinus ; for 

 it has solid long spines." 



