OSSEOUS FISHES. 
have the body compressed ; the jaws are furnished with eight teeth, 
arranged in a single row on each jaw, and covered with true lips ; the 
eyes are nearly level with the skin ; the mouth is small, and the body 
enveloped in very hard scales, which are connected in groups and 
distributed into compartments more or less regular, and strongly con- 
nected by means of a thick skin. The animal is thus protected by a 
sort of cuirass and casquo very difficult to penetrate. 
With the exception of one species, the Balistes are inhabitants of 
Tropical seas. They are generally brilliantly coloured ; they herd to- 
gether in great numbers, and in their gambols produce curious com- 
binations of brilliant colouring in the Equatorial seas. Their flesh is 
Fig. 359. The Coffre, or Ostracion. 
held in slight estimation, and at certain periods of the year is even said 
to be dangerous. 
The Cofires, or Ostracions (Fig. 359), are without scales, but covered 
with regular osseous compartments, which are so jointed the one to 
the other that the body is, as it were, enclosed in a kind of box or 
long coffer, which only reveals the external organs of locomotion — 
namely, the fins and a portion of tail. In some the body is triangular, 
in others quadrangular, with or without spines. 
These singular fishes are found in the Indian Ocean and in the 
American seas. They are of moderate size, and of little value as food 
for man. 
