PLATE LXVI. 
criminated from each other, without regarding other particulars in 
■which they also differ materially. At the present time we have be- 
fore us the Tetrodon lawigatus of Linnaeus which Pennant mistakes, 
the Lagocephalus of Linnaeus and Bloch, and the Pennantian Globe 
Diodon, all which are so obviously distinct from each other, that 
■We cannot hesitate in pronouncing them to be three distinct species. 
A few observations on each of these will not be deemed inapplicable 
to the subject under consideration. 
Laevigatus approaches nearer to our fish than the species Lago- 
cephalus : its colours are the same, blue above, and silvery beneath, 
but in this the abdominal spines are rather recurvate, and arise from an 
oblique trifurcated root : they are small, numerous, and situated, as 
Linnaeus observes, towards the anterior part of the abdomen. Our 
fish resembles this, but has the whole surface of the abdomen, down 
lo the vent, armed with spines, instead of the anterior part only: 
those spines are fewer in number than in the former fish, of a much 
tuore conspicuous size, and arise from a distinct stellated root of 
fi )ur processes instead of three ; nor is the spine oblique as in the 
preceding fish, but perfectly erect *. Lagocephalus is so remote 
fiom the preceding, that a slight description, it is conceived, will 
he sufficient to distinguish it. Instead of blue, the back is of a yel- 
lowish, or testaceous brown, the sides brown instead of silvery. 
* That this may not be conceived to arise from accident, or be observable only in 
single specimen, it will be proper to observe, that the appearance of the spines, 
an d their quadrifurcated roots, is precisely the same in two specimens of this fish in 
°Ur own collection, that differ materially in point of size : and we have also seen three 
others exactly corresponding in this particular. 
v OL. IIJ f 
K 
