ICHTHYLOGY. 



that number, and this alone, if correct, would at once determine 

 the two fishes to be specifically distinct. Mr. White's example, 

 though smaller, would not have differed in this respect, and there- 

 fore we may conclude that his specimen must have been very imper- 

 fect or the representation most indifferent ; as we cannot be assured 

 of its identity with any degree of certainty, and as no other species 

 of its tribe is described by authors with which it may be confounded, 

 we believe we may with some safety pronounce our present fish a 

 non-descript species, notwithstanding its similarity to the Balistes 

 before described. 



The name of Monoceros, assigned by Linnaeus to a species of 

 Balistes, called for the same reason the Sea Unicorn, may excite an 

 idea of its being the only one of the Balistes genus that has a single 

 spine on the head ; this would not be precisely accurate, for although 

 in general there are more than one or even two spines or rays in the first 

 dorsal fin of the different species, we know more species that have 

 only a single spine in the dorsal fin. The specific character of our 

 present species is similar to that assigned toB. Monoceros by Linnseus, 

 but it is at once distinguished from that fish by the fine granulated 

 surface of the skin, that of B. Monoceros having the pustules con- 

 siderably larger. Bloch has proposed also, as a decisive character of 

 that species that the number of rays, in the anal fin amount to fifty- 

 one ; in the species now before us there are no more than thirty-one 

 rays in the anal fin. 



Our Balistes Australis is a late accjuisition obtained from Van 

 Dieman's Land. 



