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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST 



[Vol. LIII 



another Eeversus. Apparently herein Gesner has mixed 

 certain data from Oviedo with the legends of another 

 Eeversus covered with sharp spines. 



It seems that in the writings of these old Spanish his- 

 torians two fishes are described called Eeversus f one the 

 anguilliform kind, having a pouch or sucker on its head, 

 evidently a Eemora, or, since it grows larger, an Eche- 

 neis; the other the squamous kind covered with scales 

 bearing long spines, evidently the swell fish, Diodon. 

 Concerning these fishes Dr. C. E. Eastman has written 

 several interesting and valuable papers to which the at- 

 tention of the reader is called. (See Bibliography, East- 

 man 1915, 1915a, 191G.) 



We next hear of the Eeversus in the writings of one 

 Antonio Galvano. His book, ''The Discoveries of the 

 World from their first Original unto the Yeare of our 

 Lord 1555," was published in the origmal Portuguese in 

 1563 under the editorship of his friend, F. Y. Sousa 

 Tavares, and translated and reprinted at London in 1601 

 by Eichard Hakluyt. Neither of these editions being 

 available. I have had to content myself with the Hakluyt 

 Society's reprint^^ found in Vol. 30, 1862, as edited by 

 C. E. D. Bethune. Here there is a short paragraph in 

 which the use of the anguilliform eel is attributed to the 

 squamous form. Nothing new is added and no quotation 

 will be given. 



»The reversus or "upside down" fish was undoubtedly so named because 

 when attached to the carapace of a turtle its belly was turned upward or 

 outwar<l, as also when it was attached to tlie side of a fish— in any case its 



Its at the surface belly up, hence it too was a Reversus fish. 

 " rt is interfstiii}: to note that in tlie TlMkluvt reprint the Reverso story is 



