322 HISTORY OF 



The Hippocampus, which, from the form of its head, some 

 call the Seahorse, never exceeds nine inches in length. It is 

 about as thick as a man's thumb, and the body is said, while 

 alive, to have hair on the fore-part, which falls off when it is 

 dead. The snout is a sort of a tube with a hole at the bottom, 

 to which there is a cover, which the animal can open and shut at 

 pleasure. Behind the eyes there are two fins which look like 

 ears ; and above them are two holes which serve for respiration. 

 The whole body seems to be composed of cartilaginous rings, 

 on the intermediate membranes of which several small prickles 

 are placed. It is found in the Mediterranean, and also in the 

 Western Ocean ; and, upon the whole, more resembles a great 

 caterpillar than a fish. The ancients considered it as extremely 

 venomous ; probably induced by its peculiar figure. 



From these harmless animals, covered with a slight coat of 

 mail, we may proceed to others, more thickly defended, and 

 more formidably armed, whose exact station in the scale of fishes 

 is not yet ascertained. While Linnaeus ranks them among the 

 cartilaginous kinds, a later naturalist places them among the 

 spinous class With which tribe they most agree, succeeding 



skin is divided by smooth furrows, with small rough scale-like spaces • each 

 of these, on the sides, have a small spine pointing towards the tail ; the first 

 dorsal fin has three spines, the first of which is very large, and rough in 

 front like a file, and hence the English name ; the third very short, and si- 

 tuated at a considerable distance from the other two ; the skin at the back 

 and belly, at the base of the dorsal and anal fins drawn out and compressed ; 

 pectoral fins small ; dorsal and anal fins triangular, and situate nearly op- 

 posite each other ; the tail even at the end. A singular property is possessed 

 by the first dorsal fin of this fish, which is, that no force can depress the first 

 Bpine ; but if the last be depressed in ever so gentle a manner, the other two 

 mmediately fall down upon it, and as instantaneously as when a cross-bow 

 is let off by pulling the trigger. One sort found in the Mediterranean, near 

 Rome, is on that account called pisce balestra, the cross-bow fish. 



There is another species, mentioned by Walcott, the body of which is 

 much compressed and deep ; the rays of the first dorsal fin, spiny ; the first 

 ray very long and rough ; first dorsal fin, and the back from its base, black ; 

 skin rough ; tail rough ; and in the place of each ventral fin a long rough 

 spine. Also another species, (named hispidus by naturalists,) is found in 

 Carolina; the head fin of which is not radiated, and there is a round black 

 spot in the tail fin. The body is rough, and bristly towiu-ds the tail. The 

 spine, or horn, is situated between the eyes; and instead of a belly fin it 

 lias a jagged sharp spine. Several more species, or varieties, are found in 

 the Indian ocean, and at Ascension island, all which, together with the uui- 

 torn, go by the general name of the bclestes. 



