THE FISHES OF PORTO RIOO. 
263 
white spots; ventral surface plain pale; opercular opening bordered in front by brown, then black, and 
behind by black; base of pectoral and dorsal black, the fin pale yellow; caudal peduncle black with many 
round white spots; base of caudal similarly marked; caudal dirty white with numerous large irregular 
black spots. In spirits dark brown, thickly covered with circular spots of yellowish- white; ventral 
surface lighter and without spots; lips, bases of fins, border of branchial opening, and caudal peduncle 
black, or brown like ground-color of body; caudal peduncle with numerous small round white spots; 
caudal dusky, the tip black; other tins plain. 
Found among the West Indies north to the Bermudas, Key West, and Pensacola; generally very 
common in the Tropics; common about Porto Rico, the collection containing specimens from Arroyo, 
Isabel Segunda, Culebra, and Puerto Real. A sluggish fish, reaching a foot in length, living on the 
bottom about reefs and among algse, feeding on minute animals of various kinds. 
Ostracion polyodon inermis triqueter Linmeus, Adolph i-Frederici, I, 60, 1754, India. 
Ostracion triqueter Linnaeus, Syst.Nat.,ed.X, 330, 1758, India; after Mns. Ad. Fr. 
Ostracion concatenatus Bloch, Ichthyol., pi. 131, 1785, Martinique; on a painting by Plumier. 
Lactophrys triqueter, Jordan & Evermann, 1. c.,1722, 1898. 
Fig. 75. — Lactophrys trigonus. 
220. Lactophrys trigonus (Linnaeus). “Chapin”; Common Trunk-fish. 
Head 2.9; height of side 1.7; greatest ventral width 1.75; width between ventral spines 
height 
angles 
if fin; A. 
strongly i 
i; eye 
10, its 
2.8; snout 1.3; interorbital 1.8; D. 10, its base 4.25 in head, 1.5 in eye or 2 in 
base and height about equal to dorsal; P. 2 in head. Body 3-angled, ventral 
and strongly flaring; dorsal carina strongly and regularly arched, 
ending anteriorly above posterior border of orbit; supraoccipital 
ridge strong; interorbital space concave; profile from snout to eye 
nearly straight, a slight angle; carapace open behind dorsal, closed 
behind anal; caudal peduncle slender, its length 1.6 in head, its 
least depth 2.9 in its length, its least width 2 in its depth. Scales 
of sides hexagonal, covered with small tubercles. 
Color, olive-gray, a faint blue spot in center of each of most 
of the scales; nostril in a yellow spot; boundaries of upper scutes 
blackish, of lower bluish; scutes behind gill-opening black, sur- 
rounding a white center, forming a large black blotch; a similar 
blotch on side between eye and base of caudal peduncle; caudal 
peduncle pale-olivaceous, with a few obscure white spots; fins all 
pale except caudal, which is somewhat dusky, especially at tip. 
An inhabitant of the West Indies, north to the Bermudas 
and Florida, occasionally in the Gulf Stream to Woods Hole and Chesapeake Bay; common on the 
coast of Florida; recorded by Jordan & Rutter from Jamaica; apparently not common in Porto Rico, 
only one specimen, 3 inches long, having been obtained, at San Antonio Bridge. It reaches a length of 
about a foot. 
