THE FAMILY OF GLOBE FISH AND COFFERS.
COFFRE OR OSTRACION.
This forms the first group of bony Fishes, which are distinguished by having the jaw attached to the cranium. In the Globe Fish the jaws have no apparent teeth, but they are furnished with a kind of beak in ivory, which represents them. In the group to which the Coffer Fish belong the nose terminates in a little mouth armed with true teeth. The first group includes the Globe-fish and the Diodons; in the second group we find the Coffers or Ostracions and the File-fish or Balistes.
The skin of the Globe-fish bristles with small slightly projecting spines, which repel their enemies, and even wound the hand that would grasp them. They enjoy, besides, a strange power; they can inflate the lower part of their body, and give it an extension so great that it becomes like an inflated ball, in which the real shape of the Fish is lost. This result is obtained by the introduction of an immense quantity of air into the stomach when it wishes to ascend to the surface. The species of Globe-fish are numerous. Some of them are common in the Nile, where they are frequently left ashore during the annual inundations.
There is a smooth Globe-fish known as the Moon-fish. Its compressed, spineless body, being very round, has been compared to a disk, and more poetically to the moon, to the great circular surface of which the dazzling silvery white disk bears some resemblance. But it is especially during the night that it justifies the name given to it. Then it shines brightly from its own phosphorescent light, at a little distance beneath the surface.
On very dark nights, this Globe-fish is sometimes seen swimming in the soft light which emanates from its body, the rays rendered undulating by the rippling of the water which it traverses, so as to resemble the trembling light of the moon half-veiled in misty vapors. When many of these Fishes rove about together, mingling their silvery trains, the scene suggests the idea of dancing stars. The Moon-fish is common in the Mediterranean, and sometimes reaches the markets of Europe. It is about thirty inches in length.