366 
OSTEACION. 
The head and body covered with regnlarly-fortned bony plates, 
fastened together so as to form an inflexible shield, so that the only 
moveable parts are the tail, fins, mouth, and border of the gill-openmg. 
The mouth has separate teeth. The greater number of their vertebrae 
are firmly united together. 
FOUR-HORNED TRUNKFISH. 
Piscis triangularis, 
“ “ cornutus Clusii, 
Ostracion quadricornis, 
11 “ 
JossTON; Table 45. 
Willoughby; PI. I 14. 
LiNN.«ns. 
Intellectual Observer, No. 30, 
p. 407. 
It was formerly believed that the fishes of this remarkable 
genus were to be met with only in the far east, or at least no- 
where except in very warm climates; and although when voyages 
along the coasts of Africa and India had become frequent several 
species became known to the observers of nature, they were 
for a long time regarded only as strange freaks of nature, 
which might add a new interest to the cabinets of the curious, 
' but of which the habits and distribution over the globe could 
be only a little studied. There were indeed a few particulars 
about them in which naturalists who were not travellers 
were fortunate, for with only a little care they might be 
brouf^ht to this country without distortion of shape, which 
was far from being the case generally with numerous fishes 
of other classes that were imported into England from the 
same regions— illustrations of which may be seen in the works 
of our older writers, but especially in the representations o» 
the fishes of Amboyna in the work of Ruysch, entitled 
“Theatrum Omnium Animalium;” and there is good reason to 
believe that the distortions inflicted on some were made 
