81 



result has stamped the individual with the dis- 

 cordant appendage of frightful beauty. Armed 

 cap-a-pit, surrounded with spines, and thorns 

 bristling on his back and fins, like an armed 

 phalanx of lance bearers; and decorated on the 

 body with yellow ribbons, interwoven with 

 white fillets, and on the purple fins of his 

 breast, with the milky dots of the pintado ; the 

 scorpion presents a most extraordinary contrast. 

 His eyes, like those of which poets sang when 

 celebrating the Nereides and Naiades, con- 

 sist in black pupils surrounded with a silver iris, 

 radiated with alternate divisions of blue and 

 black compartments. The rays of the dorsal 

 fin are spiny, spotted brown and yellow, con- 

 joined below by a dark brown membrane, and 

 at liberty above ; the ventral fins are violet, 

 with white drops, and the tail and anal ones are 

 a sort of tesselated work of blue, black, and 

 white united with the greatest symmetry, and 

 not unlike those ancient fragments of Roman 

 pavement often found in this island. 



This variegated fish is found in the rivers of 

 Amboyna and Japan, but even there it is scarce; 

 its flesh is .white, firm, and well tasted, like our 

 perch, but it does not grow so large ; it is of a 



E 3 



