We were well soused by the
splashing of its fins, ere a dozen hands succeeded in transporting this
heavy creature from its native abode to the shore, where it passively
died, giving only an occasional movement with its fins, or uttering a
kind of grunt.
[Illustration: SIDE VIEW OF SUN FISH.]
[Illustration: FRONT VIEW OF SUN FISH.]
This animal, I believe, is a specimen of the Sun-fish (_Orthagoriscus_).
It has no bony skeleton; nor did we, in our rather hasty dissection,
discover any osseous structure whatever, except (as we were informed by
one who afterwards inspected it) that there was one which stretched
between the large fins. Its jaws also had bony terminations, unbroken
into teeth, and parrot-like, which, when not in use, are hidden by the
envelopement of the gums. The form of the animal is preserved by an
entire cartilaginous case, of about three inches in thickness, covered
by a kind of shagreen skin, so amalgamated with the cartilage as not to
be separated from it. This case is easily penetrable with a knife, and
is of pearly whiteness, more resembling cocoa-nut in appearance and
texture than anything else I can compare it with. The interior cavity,
containing the vital parts, terminates a little behind the large fins,
where the cartilage was solid, to its tapered extremity, which is
without a caudal fin.
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