436 Pareioplite, or Mailed-cheek Fishes 
reach a high degree of venom. The flesh in all these species 
is wholesome, and when the dorsal spines are cut off the fishes 
sell readily in the markets. These fishes lie hidden in cavities 
of the reefs, being scarcely distinguishable from the rock itself. 
(See Fig. 168, Vol. I.) 
The black Emmydrichthys vulcanus of Tahiti lies in crevices 
of lava, and could scarcely be distinguished from an irregular 
lump of lava-rock. 
Fic. 374.—Black Nohu, or Poison-fish, Emmydrichthys vulcanus Jordan. A species 
with stinging spines, showing resemblance to lumps of lava among which it 
lives. Family Scorpenide. From Tahiti. 
A related form, Erosa erosa, the daruma-okose of Japan, is 
monstrous in form but often beautifully colored with crimson 
and gray. 
In Congiopus the very strong dorsal spines begin in the 
head, and the mouth is very small. Dr. Gill makes this genus 
the type of a distinct family, Congiopodide. 
Besides these, very many genera and species of small poison- 
fishes, called okose in Japan, abound in the sandy bays from 
Tokio to Hindostan and the Red Sea. Some of these are hand- 
somely colored, others are fantastically formed. Paracentro- 
pogon rubripinnis and Minous adamst are the commonest species 
‘in Japan. Trachicephalus wranoscopus abounds in the bays of 
hina. Snyderina yamanokami occurs in Southern Japan. 
But few fossil Scorpenide are recorded. Scorpenopterus 
siluridens, a mailed fish from the Vienna Miocene, with a warty 
head, seems to belong to this group, and Ampheristus toliapicus, 
