1732 Bnlletin^'/^ United States^ National Museum, 



with many irregular, small, well-detined, bluish and maroon-colored spots 

 above; a row of small, diffuse blackish blotches along lower part of sides 

 of head and body, some faint dark clouds above; a dark blotch at base of 

 Electoral and of caudal. Gulf of California to the Galapagos; common 

 in shallow water about Mazatlan, the largest example seen 10 inches long, 

 from Albatross Station 3006. In this the dermal flaps are obsolete. In 1 

 from La Paz these flajjs are as distinct as in Sjihcroides angusticeps, but 

 farther apart. Some from Panama have the sides of head and body 

 prickly. There is considerable variation in other respects. The species 

 may prove inseparable from Spheroidesangusticeps, representing the young, 

 the other the extreme of adult variation, (loiatus, lobed, from the lateral 

 flaps.) 



Canthof/aeter? lobatun, Steindachneb, Ichthyol. Notizen., X, 18, pi. v, fig. 3, 1870, Altata. 

 Spheroides lobatus, Joedan, Fislies of Sinaloa, in Proc. Cal. Ac. Sci. 1895, 490. 



2147. SPHEROIDES SPENGLEUI (Bloch). 

 (Southern Puffer; Swell Toad; Tambor.) 



Heads. D. 7; A. 6. Head compressed, narrow ; interorbital space very 

 slightly concave, or flatfish with a slight median ridge, narrow, about 

 I as broad as eye, its width 5 to 6 in head, 2i to 3 in snout, which is 2 in 

 head; profile of snout not steej). Body variouvsly prickly, sometimes 

 smooth, usually a patch of minute spines from occiput halfway to dorsal 

 fin; belly spinous to near the vent; skin of head, tail, and most of the 

 skin of the sides smooth ; sides usually with small dermal cirri, especially 

 in the young, these not very conspicuous. Young examples have the 

 back and belly covered with rather large, not close set, stellate prickles 

 as described in the original account of Tetrodon nephehis. Of the larger 

 individuals, some have prickles only on the 1)ack, others on the belly only ; 

 1 or 2 only on a small area behind the eyes near the median line, while the 

 majority of the largest are entirely smooth. There is no doubt that these 

 all belong to one species. The loss of the prickles is probably to some 

 extent dependent on age. Adult olive brown, with numerous small light- 

 bluish or greenish spots everywhere, many of them forming ocelli around 

 darker spots of the ground color; numerous scattered black spots as large 

 as the pu]iil, one in axil below most distinct; some obscure dark spots 

 along sides of belly, this region being flesh color, with pale rivulatious; 

 pectorals yellowish; caudal pale, usually with 2 dusky shades. Young, 

 gray and olive above, much mottled with blackish; back with numerous 

 irregular blue spots; iris coppery, the pupil green; belly white, grayish 

 brown along the sides; 12 round blackish spots along the boundary 

 between sides and belly; a whitish bar at base of caudal; caudal with 2 

 bars of blackish olive and 1 of white; other fins plain; back and sides 

 with whitish cirri. West Indies, very coixuuon, ranging north to coast of 

 Texas and western Florida, south to Eio Janeiro and to the Madeiras and 

 Canaries; the most widely distributed species of the family. Length 1 

 foot. (Named for Mr. Spongier, of Copenhagen, who sent the type 

 specimen to Bloch.) 



