ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



5— GLOBE-FISH 

 Latere view. Photographed by the author 



tlif skin is smooth and entirely devoid of 

 prickles. 



The porcupine-fishes and the bur-fishes be- 

 long to the second family referred to above, the 

 Diodontidae, and are fishes having all the tooth 

 structures in each jaw confluent into a turtle- 

 like beak. In addition to tlicir peculiar tooth 

 structures these fish have the scales converted 

 into spines or prickles. Two genera of this 

 family are found on our Atlantic coast. Diodon 

 and Chilomycterus, and both are reported from 

 Beaufort, the former from one specimen only 

 and the latter from hundreds. 



Chilomycterus spinosus, the spiny toad-fish, 

 is the most common puffer on the North Caro- 

 lina coast. Caught by dozens in the seine, our 

 aquarium in the Beaufort laboratory was rarely 

 without one or more specimens. However, it 

 was necessary to watch it in one of the large 

 tanks in the New York Aquarium to see a feat 

 next in interest to its habit of inflation. Here 

 one day Dr. Townsend pointed out its habit of 

 getting in the current of the incoming jet of 

 water and turning somersaults. Figure two 

 shows the specimen au naturel while figure three 

 is from a photograph of an inflated specimen. 



Both these figures J are from photographs of a 

 living fish, while figure four is a dorsal view of 

 a dried specimen in the author's possession. 

 The spines on this puffer, as all the figures show. 

 are short and blunt and not very offensive. 



The most interesting of all the puffer-fishes is 

 the porcupine or globe fish, Diodon Inisfii.i 

 (Jiystrix, the porcupine or hedgehog). This 

 fish is a tropical form, common to all the warm 

 oceans of the world, but on our coast is not 



3 These photographs were made in the Fisheries 

 Laboratory at Beaufort by a professional photog- 

 rapher whose name cannot be recalled. 



normally found north of Florida. As a strag- 

 gler the Gulf Stream sometimes carries it as 

 far north as Woods Hole, Massachusetts. At 

 Beaufort but one specimen has ever been taken, 

 and that curiously enough was a young speci- 

 men only two and five-tenths inches long. The 

 fish is not uncommon in southern Florida, and in 

 the curio shops at Key West there may be seen 

 elegant specimens of the fully distended dried 

 fish, some fifteen inches in length. During sev- 

 eral summers spent at the Tortugas laboratory 

 of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, I 

 was constantly on the lookout for the porcupine- 

 fish, but vainly so. However. Prof. W. H. Long- 

 ley one day had the good fortune to see two fine 

 specimens drift by the eastern dock, but tan- 

 talizingly just out of reach of his longest dip 

 net. They were fully inflated and were rapidly 

 carried out to sea by the tidal current setting in 

 that direction. As all the boats were on the 

 other side of the island, half a mile away, 

 pursuit was out of the question. Figure five is 

 a lateral view of a dried specimen in full infla- 

 tion. 4 This figure shows well the justification 

 of the names, porcupine-fish and globe-fish. 



These fish, when put alive into preserving 

 fluids like formalin or alcohol, will sometimes 

 die inflated, and may then be dried. I have 

 found it better to dilate the stomach or extra- 

 peritoneal sac with strong formalin pumped in 

 with a syringe, and then to hang the fish up 

 until it is both dry and cured. Such fish are 

 quite translucent and Dr. Townsend has in the 

 New York Aquarium such a fish, an Hawaiian 



4 This dried specimen was very kindly loaned me 

 for photographic purposes by Mr. E. E. Hanner of 

 Greensboro, N'. C. 



(i— A DRIED PUFFER LANTEBN 

 From the New York Aquarium 



