34 EXPEDITION TO JAPAN, 
Cestraction Puriurprr, Temm. and Schleg., Faun. Jap., Pisces, 304. 
“i ge Miiller and Henle, Plagiost, p. 76, 199, and plate. 
f Quoyr, De Frémenville, Mag. de Zool., (1840,) and plate. 
ss ZeBRA, Gray, Zool. Misc., 5. 
$s ZEBRA, Richardson, Report, (1845,) p. 195. 
PLATE XII, fig. 2. Natural size. 
Notes.—From Simoda. Life size, 8} inches. 
This remarkable form among the Squalide seems to be found from New Holland to Japan, 
if the C. Zebra is the same as the more southern species, which seems probable. Gray (Annals 
of Nat. Hist., 1, 109) doubts if Messrs. Miiller and Henle had ever seen a specimen, when they 
expressly state that they had found nine specimens in various museums. 
The figure here published seems correct in outline, and nothing can be added as to its pro- 
portions. 
Its general color is of a pale sepia-like brown, darker on back and fins, with a pinkish tinge 
on lower parts of body. Irregular bands and large blotches of several shades of the same brown 
are distributed from the pectorals to caudal, grouped in five principal bands, with smaller ones 
near the back between the first three large ones. The first of these last is just back of pectorals, 
the second back of the first dorsal and in front of ventrals, spreading laterally near the abdomen. 
The snout and cheeks are shaded also with darker brown cloudings. Small pale brown dots 
besides the above cover the back of the head and body and about one half of the pectorals, dor- 
sals and caudal. Ventrals, anal, and lower lobe of dorsal of a more uniform brown. 
Lacépéde calls it the Squale Philip, and in Schneider’s Bloch it appears as the Squalus 
Philippi. It is figured also in Gen. Hardwicke’s Illustrations, pl. 5. Mons. Bourdet de la 
Niévre, in -the Annales de la Soc. Linn. de Paris, Sep., 1825, p. 361, alludes to the discovery 
of fossil teeth of a Cestracion. Davila, Agazziz, and Owen have also described the teeth of this 
remarkable genus. Gerrard, on account of a difference in the markings, seems to consider the 
Zebra as distinct from the Philippi; but the currents of the southwestern Pacific will account 
for its being found over so wide a district. Among the Plagiostomes the colors are subject to 
great variations. Latham’s figure in Phillipp’s voyage is very correct, while the one by Lesson 
is defective, the caudal being figured with its margin unbroken. 
It attains a larger size than is here represented, not exceeding however three feet, according 
to the Fauna Japonica, where it is stated to be common in spring and autumn, and much sought 
after as food by the Japanese, who eat it raw or boiled. The local name given to it in the same 
work is Sa-siwari, derived, no doubt, from Sas-ir, to “stick in,’’ and war, ‘to cleave,’’ in 
allusion to the spines in front of the dorsals. 
