Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/268

 fish to the surface, and by a number of “phaetons,” or tropic birds, some as large as a pigeon; and of this kind, the red-tipped variety, the white plumage is shaded with rose-colour, which sets off the dark tints of the wings.

The nets captured many sorts of marine tortoise of the convex-backed genus, the shell of which is much sought after. These reptiles, which dive easily, can remain a long time under water by shutting the valve of flesh situated at the external orifice of the nose. Some of them when taken were still asleep beneath the marine animals. The flesh of these tortoises was generally only “middling,” but their eggs were most excellent.

The fish continually roused our admiration as we watched them through the open side-panels of the vessel. I remarked here many species that I had not seen before.

I will notice principally the ostraceans native to the Red Sea, to the Indian Sea, and to that portion of the ocean which washes the coasts of equatorial America. These fish, like the tortoise, the turtle, the echinus, the crustacea, are protected by a cuirass which is neither cretaceous nor stony, but actually bony. Sometimes this covering takes the form of a triangular solid, sometimes of a quadrilateral form. Amongst the former kind I noticed some of the length of an inch and a half, the flesh most wholesome and of pleasant taste. The tail was brown, fins yellow; and I recommend the acclimatisation of these fishes in fresh water, to which some sea fish soon accustom themselves. There were also quadrangular ostraceans, bearing four large tubercles on the back; the spotted ostraceans, with white spots on the belly, which grow as tame as birds; the trigons, provided with prickles formed by the prolongation of their bony covering—these fish have been dubbed “sea-pigs,” on account of the singular grunting