368 
FOUR-HORNEIJ TRUNKFISH. 
indeed, he received any reward whatever. It was elicited also 
on further inquiry that a fish exactly similar had been taken 
about two years before this by a fisherman of the same place; 
and another was viewed at leisure, and particularly described 
to myself, but not taken, by an ordinary observer, who 
watched it in shallow water further east on the same coast. 
The length of the specimen is ten inches, of which the crust 
measures seven inches and seven eighths; the height where 
deepest three inches and three eighths. The head slopes 
suddenly from the eyes. The general form compressed, sharply 
ridged along the back, flat and wide at the belly; the section 
of the shape therefore triangular. Eyes in front elevated, and 
above each a prominent ridge, from which projects forward in 
a slight curve a stout spine; the pair resembling horns. The 
snout projects a little; mouth small, lips covering a row of 
conical teeth; the upper row, as far as they can be counted, 
eight, below six. Gill openings a perpendicular slit. The back 
rises in a ridge from between the eyes, and slopes down again 
towards the dorsal fin; and about an inch and a half before 
this fin is a small elevation; the fin itself narrow at the root, 
but extended in breadth. Anal fin further back, nearer the 
tail than the dorsal. A prominent spine posteriorly on each 
margin of the flattened surface, from which the thin border 
rises to the place where the moveable caudal portion protrudes 
from the crust in a straight rudder, ending in a caudal fin; 
the border of which in this example is injured. The head 
and body are covered with hexagonal plates, marked in lines 
round a raised centre. The pectoral fin narrow. Colour 
yellowish brown, hut obviously faded. In another example the 
border of the dorsal, anal, and caudal fins is round; the general 
colour dark, with a tinge of blue; but this was not a British 
specimen. 
