386 



Dr. Richardson's Contributions to 



in muddy places surrounding stones or rocks. Its native 

 name is 6 Wullerinden/ " 



This fish agrees in general form, in the numbers of its rays 

 and in many of the details, with the descriptions given of 

 Synanceia horrida and brachio in the ' Histoire des Poissons/ 

 more particularly with the latter species ; but as the posterior 

 dorsal spines are conspicuously lower than the anterior ones, 

 its preoperculum is armed with a spine, and it has vomerine 

 teeth, which both these species are stated to want, I have 

 given it a specific name expressive of the latter character, 

 though I regret that the want of access to examples of the 

 known species prevents me from detailing its other distinctive 

 marks. Most of the figures of Syn. horrida usually referred 

 to, having been drawn from dried and distorted specimens, are 

 defective, but a good one exists in the Banksian Library, 

 which was done at Otaheite, where the fish bears the name of 

 6 Ehohoo-pooa-pooa. 5 From this our trachynis differs in the 

 form of its dorsal, in the attachment of its pectoral fin being 

 more restricted, and in other characters. 



Its form is well expressed by a phrase used in the work above 

 mentioned, - a short thick club : ' its height and thickness at the 

 pectorals are about equal ; its length, caudal excluded, is rather more 

 than twice as much. The shape of the skull has a general agree- 

 ment with the description of that of horrida. There is the same 

 kind of bony eminence between the eyes, with a deep cavity in front, 

 and several pits on the sides, back and top ; the same sudden de- 

 pression of the cranium behind the superciliary eminence ; the pre- 

 cipitous rising of the occiput, and the oblique and irregular but 

 somewhat rhomboidal plate on each temple. At the base of these 

 plates in front there is a round pit on each side which might be 

 readily mistaken for the orbits. The anterior and posterior walls of 

 the middle depression of the skull are vertical, not curved, as in 

 Bloch's figure of S. horrida. These parts are no doubt entirely 

 masked by the thick spongy skin of the recent fish, but the descrip- 

 tion is drawn up from the dried specimen, which was moistened to 

 elicit the forms of the cirrhi and the patterns of colour. The very 

 small eyes are situated (as shown in the figure of Synanceia grossa in 

 Hardwicke's ' Indian Zoology') in a triangular space formed between 

 the fore and hind limbs of the frontal eminence and a transverse 

 ligament, and have consequently a lateral aspect, differing in this 

 respect from brachio, and corresponding with horrida. The orifice 

 of the mouth opens upwards before the snout, in an arc of a circle, 

 and the under jaw, when depressed, projects half its own length be- 

 yond the edge of the intermaxillary. The teeth are short, and densely 

 villiform. The chevron of the vomer is rendered concave by the 

 rising of its obtuse lateral edges, and its surface is armed with villi- 

 form teeth still shorter than those of the jaws. The tongue and 

 palate bones appear to be toothless. The first suborbitar is com- 



