4SI API'ENDIX. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF SIX FISH 



Taken hi) the Officers of the Beagle on the Coasts of Australia, 

 BY SIR JOHN RICHARDSON, M.D. F.R.S., &c. 



INSPECTOR OF NAVAL HOSPITALS. 



BALISTES PHALERATUS.— Richardson. 



Ch. Spe(;. — B. Cauda tot aculeolis quot squamis armatd ; gend 

 totd squamulis stipatis asperd, ?iec litieis Iwvihus decursd; 

 squamis majuribus rotwtdatis post aperturam branchioruvi ; 

 fascid frontali et macula caudce nigris: fascid nigra laterali 

 ab oculo ad caudam extensd, cumque pari suo ter trans 

 dorsum conjugutd. — Radii. D. 3 — 1 j 25 ; A. 1 | 23; C. 

 12 ; P. 14. 



Plate 1. /. 4, 5. 



Profile oval, with a somewhat convex nape, and the face 

 descending in a very slightly concave line. The mouth is on a 

 level with the middle height of the body, and forms the obtuse 

 end of the oval. The white teeth have their points ranged 

 evenly, the eye is high up but does not touch the profile, and 

 the two contiguous openings of the nostrils are immediately 

 before it. The gill opening inclines obliquely forward as it 

 descends, touches the middle line of height at its lower end, 

 and its length is equal to a fifth of the altitude of the body. 

 The scales anterior to the pectorals and gill openings are closer 

 and finer than on the hinder parts of the fish. On the body 

 each scale is roughened by vertical rows of blunt points, which 

 become more acute towards the hinder part of the flanks, and 

 on the tail one of the points of each scale rises into a minute 

 spine curved towards the caudal fin. In the narrowest part 

 of the tail there are not above three or four of these spines in 

 II vertical row, but there are ten or more between the posterior 



