626 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
Hist. Nat. Poiss. Fr., tom. II, p. 74; Mob., Hcke, Fisch. 
Osts., p. 101; Day, Fish. Gt. Brit., Irel., vol. II, p. 272, 
tab. CXLVIII; Be. Goode, Fisher., Fisher Industr. U. S., sect. 
I, p. 169, tab. 35; Lillj., Sv., Norg. Fisk., vol. 3, p- 425. 
Orthagoriscus hispidus, Schn., 1. c., p. 511 (juv., ex Pall., 1. c.); 
Cuv., R. anim., ed. I, tom. 2, p. 149 = 0. spinosus , Id., 
ed. 2, tom. 2, p. 370; Rich., Voy Sulph., Zool. , vol. I, 
p. 125, tab. LXII, figg. 10—12. 
Cephalus brevis , Shaw, Gen. Zool., vol. V, p. 437, tab. 175. 
Diplanchias nasus , Rafin., Caratt. Ale. N. Gen., p. 17; Stp, 
Ltkn ( Mola ), Overs. Vid. Selsk. Forh. Kbhvn 1863, p. 36; 
Ltkn, Forh. Skand. Naturf. M. Sthlm 1863, p. 378; Wahlgk. 
N. Ant. Mola nasus, Lunds Univ. Arsskr., tom. IV (1867) 
cum tab. 
Ozodura orsini, Oz. ursini , Tympanomium planci, Diplanchias 
nasus, Trematopsis Willughbii, Orthagoriscus Retzii, Ort. 
ghini, Ort. Rondeletii, Orth. Blochii, Ort. redi, Ort. aculeatus, 
Ranzani, 1. c. 
Ostracion hoops, Rich., Ichthyol. Voy. Ereb., Terr., pag. 52, 
tab. XXX, figg. 18 — 21; juv. hujus speciei sec. Ltkn, Gthk, 
Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 4, vol. VIII (1871), p. 320, not. 
Orthagoriscus ozodura , Halting, Notices Zool. etc., Verb. Akad. 
Wet. Amsterdam, D. XI (1868). 
This Sun-fish attains a length of at least 8 feet 
(2V 2 metres). The largest specimen of which, to the 
best of our knowledge, we can speak with positive 
certainty, was exhibited from New South Wales at the 
Fisheries Exhibition of 1883 in London, and measured 
8 feet in length and 12 feet in depth from the tip of 
the dorsal fin to that of the analT In young specimens 
the form of the body is almost circular. At a length 
of 4 V 2 — 57 2 dm. the depth of the body is about 2 / 3 
(69 6 — 64 %) of the length, at a length of about 2 m., 
about 1 / 2 or 48 % thereof. Thus, the body is elongated 
with age to an elliptical form, with the depth fairly 
uniform at the middle, while the hind part ends more 
abruptly, but the forepart is somewhat prolonged, form- 
ing a short muzzle. The thickness is fairly constant, 
being greatest above and behind the eyes, where it 
measures about 1 / i of the greatest depth, and decreasing 
without a break, slowly behind and more suddenly in 
front. In old specimens, however, on each side above 
the eye and back to the perpendicular from the begin- 
ning of the insertions of the pectoral fins, we find a 
longitudinal, blunt ridge; and a similar ridge may ap- 
pear below the gill-opening and the pectoral fin. In 
this manner the section of the body at the gill-openings 
is rendered more or less distinctly hexagonal, with the 
upper and lower angles acute, the latter more so. Both 
the dorsal and the ventral edges are sharp and carinated, 
the former from the forehead behind the eyes back to 
a point a little in front of the beginning of the dorsal 
fin, the latter from a point a little behind the lower 
jaw back to the vent. The forehead, on the other hand, 
is convex; and the tip of the snout is furnished in old 
specimens with a rough and sclerous, mobile, round pad, 
which projects some distance above and in front of the 
mouth. At the ventral margin, a little below and be- 
hind the lower jaw, we find in old specimens a similar 
osseous growth in the skin, consisting of two, or even 
three, fusiform, bony plates, set in a row one after an- 
other. In old specimens, too, the ventral profile is 
distinctly more arcuate than the dorsal. The base of 
the caudal fin passes evenly into the body, so that the 
fin projects like an attenuated dermal margin at the 
end of the sharply rounded (convex) hind edge of the 
body. In young specimens the caudal fin is united 
above and below to the lower posterior angle of the 
dorsal fin and the upper posterior angle of the anal fin; 
but in old specimens it is distinctly separated from 
these fins. Its form, though, as we have mentioned 
above, it may sometimes present a singular abnormity 
— perhaps a malformation or the cicatrice of a 
wound — in general corresponds to that of the hind 
margin of the body; but at the margin, opposite the 
tip of each ray, we find a round incision, which is 
more or less completely filled by a compressed, osseous 
growth. The dorsal and anal fins rise in the form of 
acute-angled triangles — though usually with the apex 
rounded — with the anterior margin thick but in profile 
concave, the posterior sharp (attenuated) and convex. 
These two fins cannot be depressed like normal fins in 
their longitudinal direction (the second dorsal and the 
anal fins of the Tunnies, for example, are also stiff 
when pressed in this direction); but they are highly 
flexible laterally, and their movement in this direction 0 
is assisted by the texture of the skin. This last or- 
gan, which is covered with numbers of stiff wrinkles 
and ridges, crossing one another in irregular squares, 
a Rondelet states, it is true (1. c.), that the Sunfish may attain a length of 6 cubits (2 3 / 4 ni.) or more; but this assertion has not 
been confirmed, to the best of our knowledge, in modern times, unless we accept Lacepede’s statement that in 1735, on the Irish coast, a 
Sunfish 25 feet long was found, “which consequently appeared at night like a shining disk more than 400 square feet in area” (Hist. Nat. 
Poiss., tom. I, p. 511). 
b Sometimes 72, according to Kr0yer. 
c With respect to the musculature see above. 
