366 
SPINY-FINNED GROUP. 
from taking a bait by swimming round them and enticing them away; but all 
these appear to be pure fictions, and perhaps the best account of the real habits of 
the fish is one by Dr. Meyen, from which the following summary is taken. It 
appears that the pilot-fish constantly swims in front of the shark, sometimes 
coming close to its muzzle or front fins as it approaches a ship, and sometimes 
darting sideways or forwards for a short distance, and then returning to the side 
of the larger ship. In one instance, where a baited hook was thrown over the 
ship’s side, the pilot-fish rushed up, and after swimming close to the bait, returned 
to the shark, and by swimming and splashing round it appeared to be attracting 
its attention. Soon after the shark began to move, with the pilot-fish in front, and 
was almost immediately hooked. Instead of the pilot-fish taking care of the shark 
it would rather seem to frequent the company of the latter for the sake of the 
fragments of food and other substances to be found in its neighbourhood; and it is 
doubtless for the same reason that these fishes follow ships. In summer, pilot-fish 
will not unfrequently accompany vessels into the southern British harbours; but 
their purely pelagic habits are indicated by the circumstance that their spawn 
and fry are found far out in the open sea. The young both of this fish and of 
some of the allied forms are so different in appearance from their parents that 
they have been described under distinct generic names. 
Both the preceding; genera belong to a group of the family in 
Sea-Bats. 1 o o o o 1 «/ 
which the spines of the anal fin are detached from its soft portion. 
As an example of a second group in which these two portions are connected by 
membrane, we may notice the so-called sea-bats ( Platax ), remarkable for the great 
height and compression of the rhomboidal body, and the strong development of the 
dorsal and anal fins, which are often nearly similar in form and size. Indeed, 
except that they are symmetrical and have an eye on each side of the head, the 
sea-bats look almost like flat-fishes. They have the spinous portion of the single 
dorsal fin almost concealed, and with from three to seven spines; the anal has 
three spines; and the pelvic fins, which are sometimes greatly elongated, have a 
single spine and five rays. The scales are rather smaller or medium; the palate is 
toothless; and the jaws have a series of outer teeth somewhat larger than the 
small ones of the inner rows. These fish, of which there are but few species, appear 
to be confined to the Bed Sea, Indian Ocean, and the Western Pacific, where they 
are abundant. Some of them attain a length of about 20 inches, and the body may 
be marked by a few broad vertical dark bands, the long lobes of the fins being black. 
In young specimens the rays of the median fins are proportionately much longer 
than in adults, thus giving the whole fish somewhat the appearance of a cheese- 
cutter. Sea-bats are found in a fossil state not only in the middle Eocene of Monte 
Bolca, but likewise in the Cretaceous rocks of England and the Lebanon, so that the 
genus is an old one. In the allied genus Psettiis, from the coasts of Western Africa 
and the Indo-Pacific Ocean, the pectoral fins are rudimental. 
The Dories, —Family Cyttid^p. 
The deep form of the compressed body, the division of the dorsal fin into two 
distinct moieties, and the circumstance that the number of trunk-vertebrae exceeds 
