These
we may call the flycatchers of the seas.
"In the eighty-ninth genus of fishes, classed by Lacepede, belonging to
the second lower class of bony, characterised by opercules and
bronchial membranes, I remarked the scorpaena, the head of which is
furnished with spikes, and which has but one dorsal fin; these creatures
are covered, or not, with little shells, according to the sub-class to
which they belong. The second sub-class gives us specimens of
didactyles fourteen or fifteen inches in length, with yellow rays, and
heads of a most fantastic appearance. As to the first sub-class, it
gives several specimens of that singular looking fish appropriately
called a 'seafrog,' with large head, sometimes pierced with holes,
sometimes swollen with protuberances, bristling with spikes, and covered
with tubercles; it has irregular and hideous horns; its body and tail
are covered with callosities; its sting makes a dangerous wound; it is
both repugnant and horrible to look at."
From the 21st to the 23rd of January the Nautilus went at
the rate of two hundred and fifty leagues in twenty-four hours,
being five hundred and forty miles, or twenty-two miles an hour.
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