ACANTHOPTERYGIANS. 105 



Platycephalus, Bl. 



This genus has been separated from Cottus for still stronger reasons. 

 The ventrals large, six-rayed, and placed behind the pectorals ; the head 

 is much depressed, with trenchant edges, and armed with spines, but 

 is not tuberculous ; the branchiae have seven rays, and they are covered 

 with scales ; a range of sharp teeth in the palatines, &c. They inhabit 

 the Indian Ocean, and bury themselves in the sand to watch for their 

 prey. 



It is on this account that one species has been called the Insidia- 

 tor — Cottus insidiator, L.* 



Scorp/ENA, Lin. 



The Scorpions have the head like that of a Cottus, mailed and rough- 

 ened, but compressed on the sides ; body covered with scales ; several 

 rays in the branchiae, and back has but a single fin. If we except the 

 armature of the cheek, and the tubercles which frequently give them an 

 odd appearance, they closely approximate to certain Percoides, such as the 

 Acerinae and the Centropristes ; but though the inferior rays of their 

 pectorals, as in Cottus, are articulated, they are simple and not branched. 



Scorp^na, Cuv. 



The Scorpions, properly so called, have the head spinous, tuberculous, 

 and without scales ; teeth in both jaws and palatines dense as the pile on 

 velvet; irregular cutaneous cirri on different parts of the body. 



Sc. scropha, L. ; Bl. 182; and better, Duham. sect. V, pi. iv. 

 (The larger Sea-Scorpion). Redder ; larger scales and more nume- 

 rous cirri. 



Se. porcus, L. ; Bl. 181, and Duham. sect. V, pi. iii, x, 2. (The 

 Little Sea-Scorpion). Browner; scales smaller and more numerous. 

 They live in troops among the rocks; wounds from their spines are 

 considered very dangerous")-. 



The Tvenianotes are Scorpions with a strongly compressed body, 

 whose very high dorsal is united to the caudal. 



* It is also the Cottus spatula, Bl. 424, the Cotte madegasse, Lacep. Ill, ii, 12; 

 the Callionymus indlcus, L., Russel, 46, or Calliomore indien, Lacep. — Add, Platyc. 

 endrachtensis, Quoy et Gaym. Voy. Freycin. p. 353; — Cott. scaler, L., Bl. 189, Russ. 

 47; — the two species or varieties of Krusenstern, pi. 59; — the Sandkruyper of Renard, 

 part II, pi. 50, f. 210, and ten new species described in the fourth volume of our 

 Icthyology; but the Plat, undecimalis, Bl. Schn., is a Centropomus ; his PL saxatilis, 

 a Cychla, and his PI. dormitator an Eleotris. 



N. B. The only foundation of the genus Centranodon, Lacep., is the pretended 

 Silurus imberbis of Houttuyn, which is a mere Platycephalus. 



t Add, Sc. diabolus, Cuv., Duham. sect. V, pi. iii, f. 1 ;— Sc. bufo, Cuv., Parr. 

 XVIII, 1, c; — Sc. cirrhosa, or Perca cirrhosa, Thunb. New Stockhol. Mem. XIV, 

 1793, pi. vii, f. 2;— Sc. papulosa, Forst, Bl. Schn. 196;— Sc. Plumier, Lacep. I, xix, 

 3; — Sc. venosa, Cuv. Russ. 56, and several new species described in our 4th volume 

 of Icthyology. 



