BALISTIDiE. 
569 
few short, delicate rays may perhaps represent the pec- 
toral fin ; while appearances suggest that there are two 
short spines immediately behind the large dorsal spine. 
Purchased, 1869. 
Genus OSTRACION, Linnseus. 
[Syst. Nat. ed. 10, 1758, p. 330.] 
Teeth much elongated, in single series. Vertebrae reduced to 14. 
Pectoral fins small, and pelvic pair absent; no dorsal spines, the 
posterior dorsal and anal fins small and opposed ; caudal fin rounded. 
Greater portion of trunk encased in firmly-united polygonal bony 
plates. 
The following small extinct species, not represented in the 
Collection, seems to belong to this genus : — 
Ostracion micrurus, L. Agassiz, Poiss. Foss. vol. ii. (1833-44), 
pt. i. p. 17, pt. ii. p. 263, pi. lxxiv. figs. 4, 5. Ostracion 
lurritus, G. S. Volta, Ittiolit. Veronese (1790), p. clxxii. 
pL xlii. fig. 1 (err ore). Cyclopterus lutnpus, G. S. \olta, 
op. cit. p. cclxxii. pi. Lev. fig. 2 (err ore). Balistes dubius, 
H. D. de Blainville, Nouv. Diet. d’Hist. Nat. vol. xxvii. 
(1818), p. 337.— Upper Eocene; Monte Bolca. [Im- 
perfect fish ; Paris Museum of Natural History.] 
The so-called Ostracion oblonr/us from Monte Bolca (A. de Zigno, 
Mem. It. Istit. Veneto, vol. xvi'ii. 1874, p. 294, pi. x. fig. 3) does 
not appear to belong to this genus. 
The following teeth seem to belong to a member of the 
Palistidse : 
P- 6316. Three stout incisiform teeth, bluntly pointed ; Tertiary, 
St. Croix, Trinidad. 
Presented by li. J. Lechmere Guppy, Esq., 1891. 
A more slender form of tooth, not represented in the Collection, 
has been named thus : — 
Balistes caifassii, R. Lawley, Nuovi Studi Pesci, etc. Colline 
Toscane (1876), p. 76, pi. i. fig- 7. — Lower Pliocene; 
Oroiano, Tuscany’. 
The following undetermined teeth have been compared with 
the pharyngeal teeth of Balistes by W. Dames (Zeitschr. deutsch. 
geol. Ges. vol. xxxv. 1883, p. 660), who has also described nearly 
similar teeth from the Oligocene of the Vicentin, Italy, under the 
