46 



FAMILY BALISTID.E; FILE-FISHES, TRUNK-FISHES. 



species, which is most remarkable for its peculiarity of form, in- 

 dividuals have been frequently caught measuring four feet in 

 length, and nearly as much in breadth, and weighing 400 Ibs. ; 

 and it has been stated occasionally to attain double that weight. 

 605. In the second family, that of BALISTID^E, or File-Jishes, 

 the jaws are armed with a small number of distinct teeth, which 

 are inserted into sockets in the jaws; the skin is Either rough, 

 or covered with very hard scales, whence their name, and the 

 mouth is prolonged into a sort of pyramid. In their general 

 form, and in the brilliancy of their colours, they bear a consider- 

 able resemblance to the Chaetodons ( 613) ; and, like them, they 

 inhabit the seas of warm regions, keeping near the surface, or 

 in the neighbourhood of rocks. Some of them are remarkable 

 for the appendages with which the body is furnished, which are 



especially striking in 

 the Balistes peniciUi- 

 gerus; their use, how- 

 ever, is entirely un- 

 known. The Ostra- 

 cions, or Trunk-fishes, 

 should probably be 

 placed in a distinct 

 family, so remarkably 

 are they distinguished 

 by the mode in which 

 the body is protected. 

 The head and body 

 are covered with plates of bone, soldered together in such a man- 

 ner as to form an inflexible cuirass ; leaving only the tail, the 

 tins, the mouth, and a small 

 margin of the gill-opening, 

 capable of motion, all of 

 which movable parts pass 

 through openings of the 

 cuirass. The greater part 

 of the vertebrae also are 

 soldered together. There 

 are no ventral fins, and the Irs 1 and anal are small and are 



FIG. 373. UALISTES PEMCILLIGERUS. 



J IG. 374.-TRVNK-FI8H. 



