ppendages, of which one over each eye and
another at the angles of the mouth are the most conspicuous. Sharp
spines project on the crown and on the side of the gill-apparatus, as in
the other sea-perches, _Scorpaena, Serranus_, &c., of which these are
only a modified and ornate form. The extraordinary expansion of their
fins is not, however, accompanied by a similar development of the bones
to which they are attached, simply because they appear to have no
peculiar function, as in flying fishes, or in those where the spines of
the fins are weapons of offence. They attain to the length of twelve
inches, and to a weight of about two pounds; they live on small marine
animals, and by the Singhalese the flesh (of some at least) is
considered good for table. Nine or ten species are known to occur in the
East Indian Seas, and of these the one figured above is, perhaps, the
most common.

[Illustration: PTEROIS VOLITANS.]

Another species known to occur on the coasts of Ceylon is the _Scorpaena
miles_, Bennett, or _Pterois miles_, Guenther[1], of which Bennett has
given a figure[2], but it is not altogether correct in some particulars.

[Footnote 1: The fish from the Sea of Pinang, described by Dr. CANTOR
with this name (Catal. Mal. Fish. p. 42), is again different, and
belongs to a third species.]

[Footnote 2: _Fishes of Ceylon_, Pl. ix.]

In the fishes of Ceylon, however, beauty is not confined to the
brilliancy of their tints. In some, as in the _/Scarus harid_, Forsk[1],
the arrangement of the scales is so graceful, and the effect is so
heightened by modifications of colour, as to present the appearance of
tessellation, or mosaic work.

[Footnote 1: This is the fish figured by BENNETT as _Sparus pepo_.
_Fishes of Ceylon_, Plate xxviii.]

[Illustration: SCARUS HARID. After Bennett.]

_Fresh-water Fishes_.--Of the fresh-water fish, which inhabit the rivers
and tanks, so very little has hitherto been known to naturalists[1],
that of nineteen drawings sent home by Major Skinner in 1852, although
specimens of well-known genera, Colonel Hamilton Smith pronounced nearly
the whole to be new and undescribed species.

[Footnote 1: In extenuation of the little that is known of the
fresh-water fishes of Ceylon, it may be observed that very few of them
are used at table by Europeans, and there is therefore no stimulus on
the part of the natives to catch them. The burbot and grey mullet are
occasionally eaten, but they taste of