. Cuvier's animal kingdom : arranged according to its organization. Animals. 328 PISCES. The genera Tetraodon and Diodon have the faculty of blowing themselves up like balloons, by filling with air a thin and extensile membranous sac, which adheres to the peritoneum the whole length of the abdomen. When thus inflated, they roll over and float with the belly uppermost, without any power of directing their course ; but they are remarkably well defended by spines all over the surface, which are erected as they are inflated. Their air-bladder has two lobes. They have but three gill- arches in a si
. Cuvier's animal kingdom : arranged according to its organization. Animals. 328 PISCES. The genera Tetraodon and Diodon have the faculty of blowing themselves up like balloons, by filling with air a thin and extensile membranous sac, which adheres to the peritoneum the whole length of the abdomen. When thus inflated, they roll over and float with the belly uppermost, without any power of directing their course ; but they are remarkably well defended by spines all over the surface, which are erected as they are inflated. Their air-bladder has two lobes. They have but three gill- arches in a side ; and when taken, the escape of the air from the pouch makes a sound. Each nostril is furnished with a double fleshy tentaculum. Diodon, Spinous Globe-fishes, get the generic name from the jaws consisting of only two pieces, one above and the other below. Behind the trenchant edge of each piece, there is a rounded portion furrowed across, and forming a powerful grinding apparatus. The spines upon the inflated skin, which vary a good deal in the dif- ferent species, present a formidable appearance. They inhabit the vfarm seas ; but sometimes, though rarely, a specimen, brought no doubt by the Atlantic current, is found on the coast of Cornwall. Tetraodon, have each jaw marked with a suture, so as to give the appearance of four teeth. The spines are small and low, and some species are reckoned poisonous. None of them is recorded as visiting Britain. One is electrical, T. lineatug, straight, brown and whitish : it is found in the Nile, cast on shore by the inundations, and collected by the children as a plaything. Orthagoriscus, the Sun-fish, has the body compressed, spineless, and incapable of inflation, with the tail so short that it appears only the anterior half of a fish which had been cut in two in the middle. Their dorsal and anal, both high and pointed, are united to the caudal ; no air-bladder, and the stomach is small ; their surface is covered with mucus. They are fo
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1840, bookpublishe, booksubjectanimals
