[Illustration: 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.