Notice of the " Etuet," a species of Tetraodon. 269 



on the belly, but, instead, numerous small spines on the 

 shoulder or back. The large teeth also, instead of project- 

 ing from the mouth, according to the character and name of 

 the family Gymnodontes, in which its congeners have been 

 placed, are apparently covered by its thick lips, so that the 

 fish would appear, in this respect, to occupy a somewhat 

 intermediate position between the Sclerodermi and the Gym- 

 nodontes. I shall therefore give a more detailed description 

 of this specimen of Tetraodon. 



It is a short and thick fish, with a rounded back ; its 

 greatest depth being a little behind the insertion of the 

 pectoral fins, from which it tapers rapidly forward to its 

 rather blunt snout or mouth ; and from the same part of 

 greatest depth, it tapers backwards more gradually towards 

 the caudal fin. It measures rather more than 10 inches in 

 length from the point of the snout, along the back, to the 

 extremity of the tail, by 2 J inches in breadth at the base of 

 the pectoral fins ; and it is 3 inches in its greatest depth, a 

 little behind the pectoral fins, where it measures 8 inches in 

 circumference. The fish is of a brown colour above, ap- 

 parently mottled with black (the specimen being preserved 

 in spirits, the colours are uncertain), and is of a pale or 

 white colour below the insertion of the pectoral fins ; at the 

 junction of these colours, along its sides, it is ornamented 

 by a longitudinal series of bright scarlet spots, each more 

 or less surrounded with black, which begins immediately 

 behind the pectoral fin, and terminates at the root of the 

 tail. In this fish there are six or seven of these spots on 

 the one side, and seven or eight on the other. 



The head measures 2J inches in length from point of 

 snout to branchial opening in front of pectoral fins, and 

 about If inch in breadth behind the rather prominent red- 

 coloured eyes, from which part it tapers rapidly forwards to 

 its blunt or rounded snout ; the thick lips of its somewhat 

 crescentic-like mouth entirely cover and conceal the four 

 large teeth, the upper pair of which project considerably 

 over those of the lower jaw. The eyes are large and full, 

 measuring nearly half an inch in greatest length in an 

 oblique direction, and are placed at the distance of an inch 



