102 NATURALISTS CABINET. 



Abhorrent figure of all the species. 



gree, and become as round as a globe. They 

 can flatten and erect their spines at pleasure, and 

 increase the terrors of-their appearance in propor- 

 tion to the approach of danger: for on being 

 provoked or alarmed, the body that before 

 seemed small, swells to the view, the animal visi- 

 bly increases in size, its prickles stand erect, and 

 threaten the invader on every side. They are 

 often caught by the Americans, merely for the 

 barren pleasure of destroying them. They bait 

 a line and hook with a piece of sea crab, which 

 the ostracion approaches with flattened spines; 

 but on feeling its mistake, rage takes possession 

 of the creature, the spines become erect, and it 

 is effectually armed at all points, that no one 

 dare venture to lay hold of it, but they drag it 

 to some distance from the water, where it soon 

 expires. 



A kind of bag or bladder filled with air is 

 found in the belly of most of these animals, by 

 the inflation of which the animal swells itself in 

 the manner above-mentioned. 



The figure of the sea orb, and all its species is 

 so very abhorrent, that scarce any one would wish 

 to experience them as food, in which case, how- 

 ever, they are absolutely poisonous. The natives 

 of these countries where they are found, hu- 

 manely and carefully inform strangers of their 

 danger: yet the admonition was lost upon a cer- 

 tain sailor at the Cape of Good Hope, who not 



