1740 Bulletin //, United States National Museum. 



Tetraodon setosus, KOSA SMITH (now Mrs. EIGENMANN), Bull. Cal. Ac. Sci., n, 6, Nov. 13, 

 1886, Mexico. (Type, a dried skin, No. 2996, Mus. Cal. Ac. Sci.) 



680. COLOMESUS, Gill. 



Les Batrachopes, BIBRON, Eevue Zoologique 1885, 279 (pxittacus) . 



Batrachops, HOLLABD, Etudes sur les Gymnodontes, 321, 1857 (psittacus), name preoc 



cupied. 

 Colomesus, GILL, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 1884, 422 (psittacus). 



This genus is externally similar to Spheroides, but differs strikingly in 

 the structure of the skull, the frontal bones being narrowed and excluded 

 from the orbit, the postfroiitals being elongated, projected forward and 

 connected with the prefrontals; snout very obtuse; dorsal and anal short, 

 rounded. Nostrils as in Spheroides, on each side a hollow papilla with 

 2 openings. Vertebra) 8 + 11. One species; South American. (KoAo?, 

 defective; jiisdd^ middle; from the narrowed frontals excluded from the 

 orbits.) 



2158. COLOMESUS PSITTACUS (Bloch & Schneider). 



D. 11; A. 9. Body short and thick, covered with small, 2-rooted spines, 

 except on snout, around pectoral fin, and on caudal peduncle; some 

 spines behind dorsal in adult ; spines on sides with their points directed 

 toward the back. Snout very obtuse, slightly concave behind lip, its 

 length less than interorbital width. Eye rather large, not interorbital 

 width, much nearer tip of snout than gill opening. Pectoral and caudal 

 truncate, other fins rounded. Brownish, with 6 dark cross bands on 

 back, the 2 bands between dorsal and pectoral sometimes confluent, 

 the band behind pectoral and that at base of caudal most distinct; 

 pectoral dusky at base; no distinct spots anywhere. River mouths, 

 Guiana and northern Brazil, rather common; not known to descend to the 

 sea. Recorded from the Rio Blanco, Essequibo, Maranon, and Capin at 

 Para"; also from the West Indies. (ipirraMotj parrot, from the form of 

 the beak,) 



Ostracion tetraodon, SEBA. Thesaurus, etc. (pre-Linnaean). 



Tetrodon psittacus, BLOCK & SCHNEIDER, Syst. Ichth.. 505, 1801, Malabar; GUNTHER, 



Cat., vni, 286, 1870. 

 Cheilichthys asellus, MULLER & TROSCHEL in Schomburgk, British Guiana, HI, 641, 1842, 



Guiana. 

 Oheilichthys psittacus, STEINDACHNER, Ich. Mittheil, n, 1861, 141, pi. 4, fig. 2. 



Family CLXXIII. CANTHIGASTERID^E. 

 (THE SHARP-NOSED PUFFEHS.) 



This family includes small Puffers, similar in external appearance to the 

 Tetraodontidcu, but with the snout sharp and the back more or less com- 

 pressed or ridge- like. The skeletal characters by which the group is 

 defined are thus given .by Dr. Gill : Medifrontals separated from the supra- 

 occiptal by the intervention of the spheuotics which are connected 



