Jordan and Evermann. — Fishes of North America. 1729 



backward till nearly even with the dorsal fin, then curving downward 

 and extending along middle of the tail to base of caudal. Color in alco- 

 hol, silvery, olive above, clouded with dark olive, a faint greenish-olive 

 area along sides; lower part of side silvery; below white. This species 

 differs from TAigoceplialus hrrigatus in the robust body with short caudal 

 peduncle, the merely emarginate caudal fin, and the shape of the pectoral. 

 West Indies to Brazil; not common. Here described from 2 specimens, 

 9.V inches long, from Jamaica (Coll. J. S. Roberts). {Ttaxv?, tbick; HSif>aXrf, 

 head.) 



Tcfroclonpachycej)lialus, Ranzani, Nov. Comm. Ac. Sci. Inst. Bonon., iv, 1840, 73, pi. 11, 



fig. 2, Brazil. 

 Lagocephalus pachyeephalus, Jordan & Rutter, Proc. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila. 1897, 128. 



678. SPHEROIDES, Lac6pfede. 



(Swell-fishes.) 



Les gpheroides, Lac£pkde, Hist. Nat. Poiss., 11, 1, 1798 (French name only; txihercuU). 

 Spheroides, Domeril. Zoologie Analytique, 342, 1806 {tuberculatus=tpengleri, from a draT- 



ing showing a front view). 

 Orbidus, Rafinesque, Analyse de la Nature, 90, 1815 (substitute for Les spheroides, 



Lacepede). 

 Sphceroidet, Lacepede, Pillot Edition, Hist. Nat. Poiss., vi, 279, 1831, (tuhereulatus—spen- 



gleri). 

 Girrhisoimis, BwAmsOT^, Nat. Hist. Class'n Fishes, n, 194,328, 1S39 (spengleri). 

 Gheilichthys, MiJLLER, Abhandl. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 252, 1839 (1841) (testudineus) . 

 Holaeanthus, Gronow, Syst. Nat., Ed. Gray, 23, 1854 (includes all Tetrodontidoe- and Bio- 



dontidce) ; name preoccupied. 

 Anchisomus, Kaup MS., Richardson, Voyage Herald, 156, 162, 1854 (spengleri, etc.). 

 Les steno metopes (Stenometopus), Bibron, Revue de Zoologie 1855, 279 {testudinexis) ; no 



diagnosis. 

 Apsieephalus, Hollard, fitudes sur les Gymnodontes, 324, 1867 (testudineus, etc.). 



Body oblong, not elongate ; skin variously prickly or smooth, sometimes 

 with cirri. A single, short, simple nasal tube on each side, with 2 

 rather large openings near its tip. Dorsal and anal fins short, little fal- 

 cate, of 6 to 8 rays each; caudal truncate or rounded, rarely slightly con- 

 cave. Vertebrie 8-f 10=18. Frontal bones expanded sidewise and form- 

 ing the lateral roof of tbe orbit, the postfrontals limited to the posterior 

 portions. Species numerous, in warm seas; largely American. Our spe- 

 cies represent 2 well-marked suligenera, the extremes of which appear 

 very difterent from each other so far as the skulls are concerned. Some 

 of the typical species of Spheroides approach Canthigaster in the narrow- 

 ness of the frontal area, {d^aipoi, sphere; eiSoz, resemblance; the genus 

 based on a front view, in which the fish was represented as spherical.) 



SPHEROroKS : 



a. Skull very narrow above, the interorbital area more or less concave, 2i to 6i times 

 in the length of the long snout, 5 to 12 times in head; sides of body usually with 

 small dermal flaps. 

 h. Interorbital area very deeply concave, channel-like in the adult, slightly con- 

 cave in the young. 



