1849.] Catalogue of Malayan Fishes. 1 34 7 



two branches surrounding the eye can be traced no farther than the 

 region of the nostrils ; and the one in front of the gill-opening appears 

 to terminate at the lower angle of the opening. A solitary individual 

 occurred at Pinang in June 1845. Several years before, the existence 

 of a second species of Triacanthus was positively asserted by fisher- 

 men who described it as being very rarely seen, and of a size some- 

 what smaller than T. biaculeatus. 



FAM. OSTRACIOIDiE. 



Gen. Ostracium, (LinnS, 1748) Cuvier, 1817. 



Head and body covered with bony, regular plates, instead of scales, 

 soldered so as to form a kind of inflexible armour ; the tail, fins, mouth 

 and a kind of small lip covering the margin of the gill-opening are the 

 only moveable parts, all passing through holes in the armour, also the 

 greater number of vertebrae are soldered together ; each jaw with 10 

 to 12 conical teeth ; ventral fins and pelvis none ; dorsal and anal 

 small ; branchiostegous rays six. 



Ostracium cornutum, Linne. 



Ostracion cornutus, Linne : Mus. Ad. Fr. I. 59. 

 Ostracion cornutus, Linne: Syst. 1443. 

 Ostracion cornutus, Bloch. Tab. 133. 

 Ostracion cornutus, Bloch-Schneider, 500. 

 Ostracion cornutus, Shaw, V. 423, PI. 170. 

 Ostracion cornutus, Cuv. R. A. (I. Ed.) II. 154 ( 8 ). 

 Ostracion cornutus, Bennett : Life of Raffles, 693. 

 Lactophrys* cornutus, Swainson, II. 324. 

 Ostracion cornutus, Richardson, Report, 1845, 200. 

 Ostracion cornutus, Temm. et Schl. Fauna. Jap. Pisces, Tab.CXXXL 



Fig. 4, (Young.) 

 Buntal kumbang of the Malays. 



* Lactophrys, Swainson, 1839. In Nomenclator Zoologicus, Pisces, p. 33, this 

 Sub-Genus is by mistake written Laetophrys, while in Addenda, p. 3, Lactophrys, 

 De Kay, 1842, is quoted as a distinct genus. In the Zoology of New York, III, 

 341, Lactophrys is quoted with the evidently accidental omission of the name of 

 the founder, but the characters are those of Mr. Swainson, {Nat. Hist, of Fishes, 

 &c. II. 324.) 



