426 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
Genus 194. SPHEROIDES Lacepede. — The Swell-fishes. 
Body oblong or elongate; skin variously prickly or smooth, sometimes with cirri; a single, short, 
simple, nasal tube on each side, with 2 rather large openings near its tip, the tube sometimes reduced 
to a mere rim; dorsal and anal fins of 6 to 15 rays each; caudal truncate, rounded or concave; vertebrae 
18 to 21; frontal bones expanded sidewise and forming the lateral roof of the orbit, the postfrontals 
limited to the posterior portions. Species very numerous in warm seas. The group contains 2 or 3 
strongly marked subgenera which would be regarded as distinct genera if only extremes were 
considered; but the transition is very gradual from Lagocephalus, with elongate body, silvery skin, 
prominent lateral fold, long falcate dorsal and anal, with forked caudal, to typical Spheroides, with 
short fins and the form of Tetraodon. 
Crayraeion Klein, Missus II, 18, 1742 ( spengleri ); nonbinomial. 
Les Spheroides Lacfipede, Hist. Nat. Poiss. II, 22, 1800 (Trench name only; tubercule). 
Spheroides Dumeril, Zool. Analytique, 108, 1806 ( tuberculatus=spengleri , from a drawing showing a front view). 
Orbidus Rafinesque, Anal. Nat., 1815, 10 (substitute for les spheroides LacCpede). 
Sphxroidies Lacepede, Pilot Ed., Hist. Nat. Poiss., VI, 1831, 279 ( tuberculatus=spengleri ). 
Cirrhisomus Swainson, Class. Fishes, II, 194 and 328, 1839 ( spengleri ). 
Cheiliclithys Muller, Abhandl. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 1839 (1841), 252 (testudineus) . 
Holacanthus Gronow, Syst. Nat., Ed. Gray, 23, 1854 (includes all Tetraodontidse and Diodontidse ); name preoccupied. 
Ancliisomus Kaup MS., Richardson, Voy. Herald, 156, 162, 1854 ( spengleri , etc.). 
Geneion Bibron, Revue de Zool. ,1855, 279 ( maculatum ). 
Catophrynchus Bibron, 1. c. ( lampris ). 
Les Promecocephales ( Promecoecphalus ) Bibron, 1. c. (argentatus ) . 
Apsicephalus Hollard, Etudes sur les Gymnodontes, in Ann. Sci. Nat. (4th Ser.), VIII, 1857, 324 ( testudineus , etc.). 
Liosaccus Gunther, Cat., VIII, 287, 1870 ( cutaneus ). 
349. Spheroides fiorealis (Cope). 
D. 8; A. 7; eye 4.25 times in head, 2.75 in muzzle; head 3.66 in total length; anal fin behind 
dorsal, both subfalcate, narrow; caudal long, truncate or slightly concave; interorbital region concave, 
profile regularly descending; belly to vent and anterior part of sides with strong distant bristles, back 
to end of pectoral fin and head above to nares, with distant weaker bristles; no dermal appendages; a 
groove from the orbit to the tail on each side of the back, which is nearly connected by a medially 
interrupted cross groove at the occipital crest; a groove concentric with and within the superciliary 
margin extending to the preocular region and returning, hut sending also a curved branch round the 
front of each nostril. 
Color, below immaculate white, a yellowish band on the side; above reddish brown, ground 
reduced to narrow lines by the innumerable small light (? white) spots with a ring of smaller spots 
around each, over the upper regions of the head and body. Caudal fin delicately cross-barred; other 
fins unicolored. Length 5 inches. 
Two specimens from the Sandwich Islands, obtained by Dr. J. K. Townsend 20 years ago. This 
species is allied to S. alboplumbeus Riclin., but differs in the fewer fin rays as well as the color (Cope). 
In our collection from Hilo are 8 young puffers, from three-quarters to an inch in length, which 
w r e identify w'ith this species of Cope’s. In so far as can be determined from such small examples 
they agree perfectly with Cope’s description and w ith the figure of his type, given by Fowler, having 
the few r fin rays, slender body, and coloration of S. fiorealis, and we have no doubt they are the young 
of that species. 
Tetrodon fiorealis Cope, Trans. Am. Philos. Soc., XIV, 1871, 479, Hawaiian Islands (Types, Nos. 1109 and 1110, Ac. Nat. 
Sci. Phila.). 
Spheroides fiorealis, Fowler, Proc. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila. 1900, 514, pi. xx, fig. 4 (Hawaiian Islands; Cope’s types). 
Genus 195. TETRAODON Linnaeus. 
Body rather robust, skin usually more or less prickly; nostril on each side with a tentacle, bifid 
to the base, its tips without opening, the branches of the large olfactory nerve ending in cup-like 
depressions along the inner edges of the 2 flatfish lobes; dorsal and anal fins rounded, each of 7 to 14 
