THE SUCKER FISHES 2777 



numerous spines in front of the dorsal fin. Day states that he found the Indian 

 species of Fistularia, which is common in Madras, frequenting the most muddy 

 localities. 



While agreeing with the flutemouths in the production of the muz- 

 zle into a tubular beak, the two genera of fishes constituting the family 

 Centriscidce differ by the imperfect development of the pelvic fins, 

 which are truly abdominal in position. They have two dorsal fins, of which the 

 spinous one is short, while the soft one is similar to the anal. Teeth are wanting. 

 The family is distributed over the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and the Indo-Pacific, 

 the common trumpet or bellows fish ( Centriscus scolopax] occasionally making its 

 appearance on the south coast of England, while it is also known from such a dis- 

 tant region as Tasmania. It belongs to a genus characterized by the oblong or ele- 

 vated and compressed body being covered by small rough scales, with some bony 

 strips on the back and under surface, the absence of a lateral line, and the length of 

 the spines of the first dorsal fin. The second genus, Amphisile, differs by the 

 elongate form of the compressed body, which is covered on the back with a cuirass 

 of bony plates, behind which are the two dorsal fins. This genus is confined to 

 the Indo-Pacific; and in the Indian A. scutata the dorsal armor terminates behind 

 in a long spine, close beneath which are the three spines of the first dorsal fin, fol- 

 lowed by the second dorsal, the caudal appearing on the lower surface of the body 

 just behind the anal. Dr. Giinther writes that in these tortoise fishes, as they may 

 be called, the "body is so thin that it has the appearance of being artificially com- 

 pressed between two sheets of paper; it is semi-transparent, especially in the region 

 of the air bladder. The structure of the vertebral column is extremely singular, 

 and unique among Acanthopterygians. The trunk portion is more than four times 

 as long as the caudal, nevertheless it is composed of only six vertebrae, while the 

 latter consists of fourteen. ' ' The trunk vertebrae are extremely slender, the third 

 alone being nearly as long as the whole caudal portion; while in the latter all the 

 vertebrae are very short. In a fossil state the tortoise fishes are represented in the 

 middle Eocene of Monte Bolca; and it may be mentioned here that in the preceding 

 family the genera Fistularia and Aulostoma occur not only in those deposits, but 

 likewise in the lower Eocene of Switzerland; and Auliscops has been recorded from 

 the Eocene of Sumatra, and two extinct generic types have been described from the 

 Monte Bolca beds. 



THE SUCKER FISHES Family 



The small fish (Lepadogaster bimaadatus} of which three examples are shown 

 in the annexed illustration, is one of three British representatives of a genus belong- 

 ing to a small family which constitutes a sectional group by itself. Long confounded 

 with the lumpsuckers, which they resemble in having an adhesive disc on the under 

 surface of the body, the sucker fish differ from that group, not only in the struc- 

 ture of the disc, but likewise in several other respects. They have no spinous 

 dorsal fin; the soft dorsal and anal are short or of medium length, and situated far 



