166 FIRST LESSONS IN ZOOLOGY. 



fish or box-fish, Ladophrys trigonus, is a West-Indian fish ; 

 one specimen has appeared at Holmes's Hole, Mass. The 

 porcupine-fish (CMUcJithys turgidus) and smooth puffer 

 {Tetrodon IcBvigatus) and the spring box-fish {ChUomyde- 

 rus geometricus) range from Cape Cod to Florida. The 

 sun-fish {Mola rotunda) is, like the others of the order, a 

 surface-swimmer. It is sometimes a metre or more in 

 length, weighing five hundred pounds or more. 



Thus it seems that while the sharks have prospered from 



Fio. ]70.— Sea-horse, male, with the young issuing from the brood-poneh. 



the earliest times, i.e., since the appearance of any verte- 

 brate life, their great size and ferocity mainly accounting 

 for their success, after all, when we consider the number 

 of species and individuals, the bony fishes have greatly out- 

 run them in life's race, and conquered by virtue of their 

 more highly wrought structure, their greater and more 

 varied activity in swimming, .their fertility and power of 

 adaptation to every part of the watery world. For lack of 

 these qualities, especially of adaptation, the ganoid type 

 became wellnigh extinct. 



