A Year at the Shore

In infancy the Feather-star is seated at the extremity of a long slender jointed stalk, attached at its lower end, whence it rises erect, like a plant. Indeed the whole animal, in this condition, with its cup-like base and elegantly incurving arms, seated on its tall stem, has so close a resemblance of outline to a flower, that the fossil specimens, which are very numerous, and of large size, are known as Lily-stones, and technically as Encrinites, which word has the same allusion. After a while, the radiating portion, or flower, separates from the stalk, and swims freely, contracting its arms to give the impulse, in the manner of a Medusa.

Who, on looking at these two creatures side by side,—the Sea-Urchin and the Encrinite,—would imagine that they possessed any close natural relationship, or would suspect that they could have been framed on the same model? Yet it is really so; there is a common plan of structure in both; pervading, too, many intermediate forms, which at first sight would seem to manifest as little resemblance to the one as to the other. It would, in fact, be easy to select from any well-furnished museum a continuous chain of specimens, whose links approach each other so closely as to form an unbroken series from the Urchin to the Feather-star.

Among the Urchins proper there are some species, such as the Sphere Sea-egg, and the one known as Fleming’s, which have a figure not far from that of a globe. Others are much more depressed, of which the little Purple-tipped is a notable example. Still the spherical shape is conspicuous. From this rounded form other species, more and more flattened, gradually lead to the Scutella, which takes the form of a thin round plate, quite flat beneath, but slightly convex on the upper surface. The structure is the same as before, but the spines appear to the naked eye only as very minute hairs; but, when magnified, are found to be of the most elaborate workmanship, each having a movable socket-joint. In the genus Clypeaster, the round outline is changed for a five-sided figure, the angles of which in succeeding species project more and more, and the spaces between become more and more indented, till we arrive at the Starlets, and at length to the Cross-fishes (Asteriadæ). The rays gradually becoming longer and more slender, we are brought to those in which they are so lengthened as to resemble the tails of so many serpents, whence they are named Ophiura. In succeeding genera, such as that called Medusa’s head (Gorgonocephalus), the central part is still further diminished, and the rays are divided into branches of great length and number. Each ray, soon after its commencement, separates into two more; these again into two others, and so on to an astonishing extent. Upwards of 2500 ramifications have been counted on a single specimen, presenting a living net, by the contraction of which any small animal once touched would inevitably be detained. The sucker-feet are no longer found, these animals changing their position by dragging themselves along by their flexible arms. Finally, we have the Feather-stars, which, as we have seen, in their infant condition, and the Lily-stars, which throughout life (as the abundant fossil species in our own land, and that noble one which still exists in the West Indian seas), consist of slender-jointed arms, with feather-like filaments, seated at the free extremity of a tall jointed stalk, also furnished with whorls of filaments, which is fixed by its base to the solid rock.

Altogether, the series presents us with one of the most instructive and most marvellous examples of the vast variety of external form and internal structure which may be assumed by almost insensible modifications of one plan of organization; and so of the unfathomable resources of wisdom in the ever-blessed God. For every one of these links,—and there are multitudes which I have not named, found either in remote seas or in a fossil condition, that fill up the gaps with close gradations—displays an essentially common model; and the least fragment of the stony skeleton of any one would be sufficient to enable a competent naturalist to decide authoritatively, the instant he looked at it beneath his microscope, that it belonged to the great class Echinodermata. The calcareous shell of which the framework is composed,—a glass made of lime,—is deposited in a fashion which, while common to all, is found nowhere else throughout the whole animal kingdom.

Let us turn from these investigations, fascinating as they are, to examine the ways and means of two or three other creatures, familiar enough to us who habitually explore the sea-margin. I allude to certain members of the great class Crustacea, not Crabs nor Lobsters exactly, but called so by courtesy, something in fact between both. My dredger’s hauls are always sure to contain, creeping in the tangled thickets of Laomedea, Antennularia, and other of the flexible Polyps, or playing at bo-peep from the interstices of the Serpula masses,—numerous specimens of a tiny Crab,[91] with a circular flat shell, no bigger than a split-pea, large wide claws, and very long antennæ, like two hairs. They are of various colours, sometimes pure white, sometimes chocolate-brown, and often clouded with different hues. Minute as they are, they are not despised by great fishes; for the heavy-sided, clumsy-headed cods, that occupy so large an area on the fishmonger’s slab, are often found to have their stomachs packed full with these little Crabs; which doubtless the glutton picks off one by one, enjoying the taste of the savoury atom as it rolls over his fat fleshy tongue.

But we may much more easily procure specimens of his bigger brother, the Shaggy Flat-crab,[92] which abounds under nearly every flat stone at low-water on Babbicombe beach, and indeed almost everywhere else, under the like conditions. He is a curious subject, though far from attractive as to his personnel, for he is, I regret to say, of irreclaimably dirty habits. You never find him but he is begrimed and saturated, so to speak, with the impalpable red mud of which our soil consists,—the débris of the red sandstone. Yet blame him not. He is more hirsute than a modern swell; his hands and his face are as hairy as Esau’s; a dense short pile of stiff bristles stands out from all his prominences, and catches and entangles the sediment in the midst of which he loves to riot. I say again, blame him not; we must not infer that he likes dirt for its own sake, because he gets his living in it, any more than the sweep or the dustman chose his trade because he had a penchant for the grime. Nay, dirty as our little flat friend is, he is endowed with organs expressly for the purpose of cleaning himself, and fails not to use them too. On first looking at him you would suppose, comparing him with other Crabs, that he was short of one pair of feet; yet presently, from a narrow, almost invisible crevice behind, he jerks out two jointed limbs, as slender as bristles, which, however, are each terminated by a tiny two-fingered claw, and are beset throughout their length by stiff short hairs standing out at right angles, like a brush. These feeble limbs are indeed cleansing brushes, with which he keeps certain portions of his person clean, applying them with the greatest ease to the whole surface of the abdomen, and under-side of the carapace or body-shell, while the delicate fingers of the little hand are used to pick off adhering matters that cannot be removed by brushing. Then having done his washing, he cleans his brushes with his mouth, and snugly folds them up, and packs them away in their groove till he wants them again. Yet with all this, he remains, as I said at first, a dirty subject notwithstanding.

A curious chapter in the history of this little creature, which I have put on record elsewhere,[93] is, I think, so very instructive, that I may venture to repeat some parts of it here. Let me premise that the Crab habitually lives under stones, a habit for which the remarkable flatness and thinness of all its parts adapts it; he has somewhat of the appearance of having been crushed flat by the pressure of the stone under which he lives. He does not wander much to seek his food, but expects it to be brought to him, he making provision for its conveyance.

The organs which he employs for this end are the outer foot-jaws or pedipalps, which are of unusual length, and are fringed with incurving hairs. Watching a Flat-crab beneath a stone close to the side of my tank, I noticed that his long antennæ were continually flirted about; these are doubtless sensitive organs of touch, or some analogous sense, which inform the animal of the presence, and perhaps of the nature, of objects within reach. At the same time I remarked that the outer foot-jaws were employed alternately in making casts; being thrown out deliberately, but without intermission, and drawn in, exactly in the manner of the fringed hand of a barnacle, of which both the organ and the action strongly reminded me. I looked at this more closely with the aid of a lens; each foot-jaw formed a perfect spoon of hairs, which at every cast expanded, and partly closed. That this may be better understood, I may say that the foot-jaw resembles a sickle in form, being composed of five joints, of which the last four are curved like the blade of that implement. Each of these joints is set along its inner edge with a row of parallel bristles, of which those of the last joint arch out in a semicircle, continuing the curve of the limb; the rest of the bristles are curved parallel or concentrical with these, but diminish in length as they recede downwards. It will be seen, therefore, that when the joints of the foot-jaw are thrown out, approaching to a straight line, the curved hairs are made to diverge; but as the cast is made, they resume their parallelism, and sweep-in, as with a net, the atoms of the embraced water. The microscope revealed to me a still higher perfection in this admirable contrivance. I then saw that every individual bristle is set on each side with a row of short stiff hairs, projecting nearly at right angles to its length; these hairs meeting point to point those of the next bristle, and so on in succession, there is formed a most complete net of regular meshes, which must enclose and capture every tiny insect or animalcule that floats within its range; while, at each out-cast, it opens at every mesh, and allows all refuse to be washed away or fall to the ground. For we are not to suppose that the captures thus promiscuously made are as indiscriminately swallowed. A multitude of atoms are gathered, which would be quite unfit for food; and a power of selection resides in the mouth, whether it be the sense of taste or touch; or any other analogous but recondite perception, by which the useful only is admitted, the worthless, or at least the injurious, being rejected.

Companions of the Flat-crabs, closely allied to them in all essentials of form and structure, yet widely separated by general figure and appearance, and to some extent by habits too, are the Squat-lobsters. They, too, are somewhat flat, but they are more decidedly lobster-like, with a distinctly jointed abdomen as broad as the body, terminating in wide and strong swimming-plates. This portion is, during rest, thrown-in under the body, much more completely than a true lobster or prawn can do it, and yet is by no means so permanently set in that position as in the true crabs. The Flat-crabs and the Squat-lobsters constitute an intermediate group between the short-tailed and the long-tailed Crustacea, the Flat-crabs inclining to the one, the Squats to the other alliance. When the abdomen is wrapped-in, the outline of the Squat is nearly oval, particularly in the commonest species, the Olive or Scaly Squat.[94] That of the Scarlet or Embleton’s species[95] is a longer ellipse. The front runs out into several sharp spines, as do also the edges of the carapace; and the inner edges of the front limbs, which carry long and stout claws, are very spiny. More formidably armed in this respect, however, than either, is another species, found occasionally at low-water, the Painted or Spinous Squat,[96] all the limbs being set, on both edges, with stout sharp prickles. The last named is the largest kind, being sometimes four inches long; then the Olive, which is commonly from two to two and a half; while the Scarlet rarely exceeds an inch and a half. They differ very much in colour, the Olive being of a dull blackish green, with narrow transverse lines of pale yellowish; the Painted somewhat of the same general hue, but with the eyes and the tips of the claws of the most vivid scarlet, while the body is varied with lines and spots of an equally brilliant azure. Embleton’s is of a more or less bright red, varying from a light orange or warm cream colour to a full orange, clouded with patches of deep scarlet. The last is an inhabitant of deep water, obtained only by the dredge; by this means, however, I obtain it in considerable numbers. The other two are found, the first abundantly, the second rather rarely, under stones in our coves. I have found, in autumn, in such situations, several specimens of small size, rather smaller than full-grown Embletons, which I conclude to be the young of the Painted. The whole body is pale blue, tesselated all over with black and reddish brown; the legs are banded with red, and the hands are of the same colour. They have a very pretty appearance.

The whole race are very cautious and timid. With the long claws, and the longer antennæ, stretched out to their utmost in front, the suspicious Squat feels the unknown ground with delicate touches; should he touch any object that moves, he gives on the instant a vigorous flap with the broad incurved tail, and shoots backward through the water to the distance of several inches. At the same moment all the legs are thrown forward in the line of the body, to diminish the resistance. Mr. Couch says: “It is very remarkable to witness the accuracy with which they” [he is speaking of the Painted species specially] “will dart backward for several feet into a hole very little larger than themselves: this I have often seen them do, and always with precision.” This would surely be a remarkable feat for an animal in the air; how much more through a medium so dense and resisting as sea-water!

I have elsewhere[97] described and figured the young of a species of this genus in two of its stages. In the first it may be compared with a prawn, having a lengthened slender body, whose fore part is protected by a prawn-like transparent carapace, with an immensely long straight spine in front, and two hooked ones behind. In the next stage the general figure is acquired, but still the form is more like that of Porcellana than of Galathea.

VIII.
AUGUST.

What eager pursuer of marine animals has not gloated over a rock-pool? On all our rocky coasts we find them more or less developed; but it is on these south-western shores, where the compact limestone juts out into promontories, that we find them in perfection. The burrowing mollusca specially favour the limestone; the Saxicava, I think, lives in no other medium; and it is to the operation of this coarse ugly little shell-fish that this rock is indebted for the honeycomb-like excavation which has eroded its surface. Below a few inches this erosion does not extend, for the Saxicava is but a small animal, and its siphons must reach the orifice of its burrow; therefore it never goes deeper into the stone than will allow it comfortably to bathe its red nose in the free water, though it is not at all particular about the angle to the surface at which it bores. The myriads and myriads of these auger-holes that have been bored remain, though the feeble animals perish generation after generation; each new-born shell-fish makes a new bore for itself, never appropriating one ready-made, and so there is a perpetual excavation of the living rock with these shallow auger-holes, always of the same width, or nearly; about half-an-inch. The result is what we see; that the surface of the rock knows no such thing as a plane surface, but a surface covered with smooth borings, running in all directions, so as continually to break in on one another; and that so close together, that the interspaces form narrow knife-edges, and sharp angles and projecting points. A particularly interesting circumstance is, that this honeycombed condition is characteristic not only of that level of the rock which is covered by the sea for some portion of every tide, but of that part, to a certain height, which is never covered at all. The Mollusca, it is true, cannot live wholly deprived of sea-water, and, in fact, there are none in this ever-dry portion, though the burrows by thousands testify that they were there once. We must infer that the coast has been generally elevated; perhaps by slow and imperceptible degrees, by an operation still proceeding but unappreciated; perhaps by some sudden convulsion which took place at a remote era, unrecorded and forgotten.

When once raised beyond the level of the highest tide, the eroded surface appears to have a permanency which defies the action of the elements for an undefinable period; for it seems liable to little change. It is probably comparatively unalterable, or alterable slowly, beneath the level of the lowest tide. But between tide-marks, the perpetual change from wetness to dryness and back again, and the incessant wash of the waves, which frequently beat and dash upon the eroded surface with immense violence, are continually grinding down the projecting points and thin walls of stone, and thus creating a new surface, to be bored afresh by new generations of Mollusca.

It has seemed to me that these burrows have played and are playing an important part in the formation of the numberless rocky basins which we call tide-pools, and in which we marine naturalists so much delight. Let us look at the process. About half-tide level there is a mass of bored rock, from whose burrows the tenants are dying out for want of sufficiently long water-covering. A heavy sea is breaking over it, which has snapped off the thin partition beneath two contiguous burrows, breaking it into several sharply angular bits, which fall into the hole. The whirling and eddying of the waves rattle and roll these fragments round and round day after day, week after week, till at last they are ground to nothing: but an equal effect has been produced on the hollow which held them; its cavity has been widened and deepened by the same grinding action. By-and-by a pebble is rolled in, and being almost large enough to fill the cavity, it does not readily wash out, but grinds round and round with the motion of the sea. So the process goes on, perhaps for centuries, perhaps with long intervals of almost sameness; every stone that is washed-in enlarging the work; while, when once the hollow has become only ever so little larger or deeper than those which surround it, the pebbles will have an increasing tendency to roll in and to stay there. So, at length, the basin is formed, tiny at first;—I know scores not so big as a slop-bowl, which yet have their furniture of elegant little sea-weeds, green and purple, and their tenants of worms, and shrimps, and polyps;—but destined by-and-by to become noble reservoirs in which man may pleasantly bathe, and in which little fishes play and shoot to and fro, and hide under the umbrageous fronds of the oar-weed and tangle that droop gracefully into the ample cavity.

In the pleasant sunny afternoons of this season of the year we may find in tolerable abundance the pretty Cork-wing,[98] in such rock-pools as I have been speaking of. In the shallow hollows of the ledges they shoot hither and thither, the swift movement just catching the collector’s eye; but here they are difficult to capture, owing to the numerous exits and hiding-places among the stones. The deeper basins are pretty sure of containing one or two, and generally of larger size. Here the dip-net can be brought into action, and they are readily taken. But the finest specimens are obtained around the edges of the rocks in the free water, and where there is considerable depth. Here the attentive eye discerns them quietly hovering, some yard or two beneath the surface, deliberately picking their tiny crustacean food from the drooping weeds, or playing to and fro in little parties of half-a-dozen, on motionless or gently undulating fins; a pretty sight to watch. From these seaward edges of the rocks the coarser sea-weeds growing in a thick fringe, when the tide has left them partly exposed, hang their tips in the heaving water; and under this grateful shelter the little Corkwings, as well as other small fishes, their companions, delight to disport themselves, finding copious food in the purple obscurity, and getting many a peep through the latticed leaves at their idler fellows in gamesome play without. If, now, the collector have provided himself with a stiff ring-net, and a long and stout handle, he may sift out, as it were, the tenants of these shades, by collecting, in succession, the drooping weed-tips in the mouth of his net, and lifting it gently through them; when the lovely little emerald fishes will be found, two or three at each dip, struggling and panting and leaping and quivering their helpless fins at the bottom of his bag.

The Corkwing belongs to the great Wrasse family; which, though it chiefly develops itself in the tropical seas, is yet well represented in our own. Yarrell has figured thirteen species, all of them found on our south-western shores, and a few of them ranging to the north as well. The entire family is remarkable for its bright and gorgeous hues, often taking the form of bands, stripes and spots, well defined, and in vivid contrasts. This little species, which extends to the length of five inches, but is much more commonly taken not more than half that size, is of a rich emerald-green hue, lighter beneath, and generally marked with a conspicuous black spot on each side of the base of the tail. Small individuals are frequently found, of a dark reddish brown, arranged in a minute tesselated pattern on a pale ground; and occasionally of a rich golden bronzed hue. The eyes are usually of the finest vermilion.

They are entertaining inmates of an aquarium; they play slowly up and down in the corners of the tank, exploring every angle and cranny, hanging in every possible attitude, especially at night. They soon become familiar, and may be preserved in health a long time. They are constantly occupied in searching for, and picking off atoms, invisible to us, with their protrusile lips. These organs are remarkably large, thick, and fleshy, whence has been derived the name of the family, Labridæ (from labrum, a lip); and, in death, they are generally projected in an uncouth and repulsive form. It is a pity that Yarrell’s figures have been for the most part copied from specimens in this distorted condition, and are therefore hideous caricatures of the little beauties. His Corkwing is a notable example, presenting but little resemblance to the playful emerald in my tank; while the Gilthead and the Sea-wife are still more horrible. It is matter of regret that so large a portion of our pictorial natural history represents death rather than life; while a herd of slavish compilers, who have never seen the creatures on which they obtrude their teachings, copy such imperfect figures, and copy each other, and go on augmenting the distortions, and straying farther and farther from nature, till all vraisemblance is lost in the ludicrous caricature.

In a former work[99] I have narrated the untimely fate of one of these pretty fishes in my possession, through the poison-darts of a Parasitic Anemone.[100] A similar accident befell one lately, which I had kept in my tank for about two months. This individual, about two and a half inches long, active and healthy, made a backward spring, and came in contact with the tentacles of an Anthea cereus, which in an instant enveloped its hinder half, clinging round and over it and quite covering that portion. I was looking on, and after a moment’s glance to see that the fish was perfectly helpless, I removed it with a stick, so that it was free in about half a minute from its accident. But the effect was manifest; it swam away indeed, but irregularly and fitfully, and presently sank down on the bottom; lay awhile, then struggled up for a few seconds, swimming on one side, as if partly paralysed, and frequently turning over belly-up; then sinking obliquely down and hiding its nose between the stones. The fins were white and ragged, and the skin of the hinder part was ruffled up in parts, and the entire hind-half looked diseased. By night it was not to be seen; but the next morning I found it, dead and stiff, and with the whole of the parts that had been embraced by the Anthea turned of a pellucid white, the edges of the fins sloughed away and decomposing.

When we consider that the entire period of contact was no more than half a minute, the power of the subtle poison, injected by the cnidæ of the Opelet, becomes very manifest; and the accident afforded me another confirmation of what has been fondly denied, the amazing energy of the poison-apparatus in the Actinozoa.

An assiduous searching of these hanging fringes of fuci will be sure to yield a pleasing return of other objects. Neglecting at this moment the Prawns, Æsops, Opossum-shrimps, Spider-crabs, and many other crustacea, not to speak of other classes, let us direct our thoughts exclusively to the fishes. You will get probably one or two specimens of that little bull-headed rogue, the Father-lasher,[101] armed at all points, like a knight in the fair time of chivalry. An impudent little rascal he looks, and right villanous; but whether he is in truth guilty of whipping his paternal parent, this deponent saith not. Big-headed, wide-mouthed, staring-eyed, beset on all sides with hard spines as sharp as needles, which he erects with threatening fierceness as he anticipates your touch, this Lucky Proach, as our northern friends name him, may not invite a close acquaintance; and indeed our fishermen generally jerk him energetically out of the net as soon as they see him, thinking themselves “lucky” to be well quit of his prickles.

Yet in truth he makes a funny little tenant of the aquarium. His colours are agreeable; deep rich brown on the upper parts, fantastically patched and clouded with various shades from black to pure white, while the sides and belly are brilliantly silvery or opalescent. His countenance expresses considerable intelligence; and the contrast between his aspect when he is alarmed, and all his spines are laid flat, and when he thinks to carry his point by bullying, and bristles up all his sharp lances, and glares with a threatening goggle, is very amusing. He presently becomes at home; for a day or two he skulks under the rocky ledges, and you see little of him; but soon his characteristic impudence reassures him, and vires acquirit eundo; he makes short hasty sallies into the open, and instantly scuttles back to his retreat; presently you see his great head projecting out of some crevice in the rocks, whence he can command a pretty extensive view; and now that is his selected home, and there henceforward you may pretty surely find him, whenever he is not to be seen engaged in predatory forays in some other quarter of the tank. Now he grows very saucy; not a Blenny or Goby or Pipe can come before his castle-gate but Proach must dash out to have a passage-of-arms with him, returning, in all the pride of conquest, when he has driven the routed foe out of sight, to his rocky fortress, and settling himself in the same watchful attitude as before. Every atom of meat that you drop into the water within his range of vision must be his: you perhaps intended the morsel for the Goby or the Blenny, but Proach sees it, and Proach must have it. They indeed may sail up towards the speck, but Proach dashes up, bristling with indignation at their temerity, and snaps the food from before their very noses. Not one of them can get a bit till Proach is satiated; and I have often seen him lie with a morsel projecting from his mouth for some time, absolutely incapable of swallowing more, before he would relinquish the contest. Now he fears nothing; he will even rush to the surface when he sees you approaching, and, with a sudden snap, seize the meat in your fingers, and drag it away.

Mr. R. Q. Couch gives us some interesting particulars of this little fish, or his brother, the Sea-scorpion; for they are so much alike, both in appearance and manners, that some naturalists do not recognise any specific difference between them. “When caught,” he says, “it makes a croaking kind of noise; opens its gill-covers, and erects the spines of its head, and stiffens its whole body, as if prepared for a vigorous defence. The spines are covered with a skin or sheath, which the creature has the power of drawing from the points and leaving them bare. This fish will live a long time out of water, provided it be kept slightly wet, but soon dies on immersion in fresh water. Those fish that swim deeply are able to sustain life much longer than those that swim near the surface; and the former are more sluggish in their movements, and require less aërated water for respiration. The more active are surface-swimmers. The immersion in fresh water acts as a poison, death not resulting from any variation in the respirable quality of the water. If a Sea-scorpion, after being taken from the sea, be constantly kept wet with salt water, it will live for a considerable time, the gill-covers acting as if surrounded by water. If the gills be kept wet and the skin dry, the creature gets restless, croaks, the gills move less rapidly than before, and it then dies at an earlier period than when kept altogether moist. If the gills be wetted with fresh water well aërated, life is not so long retained, but the fish seems more active for a time, and dies at last almost in a state of plethora.”[102]

According to Yarrell, “this species spawns in January, and the ova at that time are very large and of a fine orange-yellow colour. These are deposited near the sea-shore, frequently in the estuaries, and sometimes even in rivers; the fish having prepared itself for this change by its previous residence in the brackish water, after which it appears to be able to bear either extreme. Its food is small crustaceous animals, and it is said to be particularly partial to feeding on the fry of the Blennies.”

On the subject of its instant death, when removed from its native element to fresh water, the same naturalist remarks, alluding to the hypothesis that the speedy death of fishes in general, when removed into the atmosphere, is due to the drying of the delicate membranes of the gills; “the reverse of desiccation takes place in this instance: the gills are bathed with a fluid containing more oxygen than sea-water, and which also yields that oxygen much easier, yet death happens immediately. In this last instance it may be inferred that the fish, unable suddenly to accommodate its respiratory organs to fluids of such different densities as those of pure sea and fresh water, the blood is imperfectly aërated, the brain is affected, convulsions ensue, and if not released it soon dies.”[103]

You will pretty certainly find in your net, too, twining and writhing about like little snakes, some of the smaller species of Pipe-fishes, often called Sea-adders, and most abundantly the smallest of them, and the commonest in shallow waters,—the Worm Pipe.[104] The pretty Æquoreal Pipe, or as Mr. Couch appropriately names it, the Painted Sea-adder (from the variegated tints of brown and yellow, wherewith its numerous angular plates are individually adorned), is abundant enough all along our southern coast, in deeper water, affecting the extensive beds of zostera, and of sea-weeds, which in many places clothe the bottom. The eminent Cornish zoologist observes of this species, that “in May and June, and frequently in July, and occasionally in August, these fish rise to the surface of the water, however deep it may be, and bask themselves in the sun. They retain their position at the surface by clasping with their tails the cords and buoys of the crab-pots, sticks, or any other substance they may find floating at the surface. The whole of the caudal portion of the body is coiled round the stick or cord, and the heads lie either horizontally or at right angles to the surface. In some seasons the buoy-ropes of the crab-pots are literally obscured by them from the surface of the water down as far as the eye can penetrate.”

The little Worm Pipe may also lay claim to the title of “painted;” for its anterior parts especially are generally marked with spots of pure white bounded by a border of black, while the cheeks and throat are covered with a delicate flush of purple. The habit mentioned by Mr. Couch of curling the tip of the tail around objects in the water is manifested quite as strongly by this more slender and more flexible species, which does not possess any trace of a fin at the tail-tip. This prehensile organ is in a moment whipped round the stem of any sea-weed or similar object with which it comes into contact; and thus moored, the pretty Pipe throws its little body into all sorts of elegant contortions, hanging freely down, or elevating itself almost perpendicularly, at pleasure.[105]

The fins in this genus of fishes are very small and feeble. Some of them have a pair of excessively minute pectorals, an almost invisible anal, and a tiny fan for a caudal. All have a short delicate dorsal, and several have no other fin than this, of which section the Worm Pipe is an example. Yet, according to the Swedish naturalist, Fries, the young of this species possess at their birth both caudal and pectorals, the former extending far up on the body, both on the dorsal and ventral edges. All these are in after life absorbed except sufficient to form the permanent dorsal. This fin, in the whole family, is excessively filmy, and is, during the action of swimming, fluttered with a very rapid screw-like vibration.

Slight as are the organs of motion, they are sufficient for the Pipe-fish’s ordinary exigencies; and Mr. Patterson has recorded an interesting example of their capability to achieve movements of an unusual kind. He had captured the finest of our species,[106] which he had committed to a basin of sea-water. “One of the long-bodied crustacea, which are abundant during fine weather, and had been captured at the same time, was placed in the same vessel. It was a species of Gammarus, and about an inch in length. The Gammarus would seem to have got tired of swimming, and, for a resting-place, it fixed itself on the back of the Pipe-fish, close to the tail. The fish had not been a consenting party to this arrangement, and soon evinced its dissatisfaction, by lashing the tail with great violence on each side, to dislodge the intruder. He, however, kept his hold; and so soon as the fish ceased for a few seconds, he crept a little further up on the back, as if aware that the velocity of movement was less near the centre of the circle. The fish lashed the water again with great violence, but without any good result; and so soon as it stopped, the Gammarus crept up a little nearer to the head. The Gammarus seemed to be the marine prototype of the old Man of the Mountain, whose pertinacity, in retaining his place on the back of Sinbad the Sailor, is a portion of that lore of our boyhood, that is never afterwards forgotten. The Pipe-fish then changed its tactics. Instead of lashing with its tail, it gave to its whole body the kind of movement it might have had if fixed on a Lilliputian spit, and in the act of being roasted. The body was made to revolve round and round on its longitudinal axis; but the Gammarus still held on, and, at each interval of rest, made a few steps further in advance. This was more than once repeated, until, pitying the poor Pipe-fish, we removed the cause of its annoyance to another vessel.”[107]

Among these pleasing little fishes some very remarkable deviations from the ordinary economy of animals occur, though not quite unique. In almost all the Mammalia of Australia, as is well known, the female has an external pouch or false belly, into which the young is transferred at a very early period of embryonic life, and there matured. In the Pipa, or Surinam Toad, the eggs are laid by the female, and placed on the broad back of the male, cells being then formed in the skin, which receive the eggs till they are hatched. Somewhat like the latter is the case of the Pipe-fishes, among which it is the male that acts as wet-nurse. Along his belly runs a groove, formed by two flaps of skin, within which the eggs, when laid by the female, are placed, and in which they are safely carried till the birth of the infant fry.

How wondrously diversified are the modes ordained by the Divine Wisdom for maintaining the economy of creation! What a depth is there in that revelation concerning the everlasting Son, “in whom we have redemption,”—that “all things were created by Him, and for Him, and He is before all things, and by Him all things hold together (συνέστηκε).”[108]

I have taken in similar circumstances a little fish which is considered very rare on our shores, the Butterfly Blenny.[109] The Mediterranean coasts of Europe are its proper home, where it resorts to the tufts of weeds, feeding on minute Crustacea and Mollusca. Yarrell cites three examples as having been obtained by dredging off South Devon, and one from which his own figure was taken, which was obtained among the rocks of Portland. As he alludes to no other British examples, he probably knew of no more. Mr. R. Q. Couch, in his Notes on the Fishes of the Land’s End, says, “A single specimen of this fish was taken by a trawl-net in 1845, but the spot on the first dorsal fin was so obscure as scarcely to be noticed.”

It is therefore with the more satisfaction that I can record the possession of two specimens, one taken in Weymouth Bay from deep water, the other among the hanging weeds of this shore. Both were in full development and high colour, the spot on the fin from which both the specific and the popular names are derived, strongly marked, so that I am enabled to give a representation of this interesting fish in its vivid hues, as it appears in life and health.

The form is thick-set, as is that of the other more common species of the genus; the forehead is, however, rounded and less abrupt, which imparts to it a different physiognomy. The fins are ample, with the exception of the ventrals, which in all this genus consist of two rays each; the pectorals very large, nearly circular, transparent and colourless, with pearly rays. The dorsal is divided into two portions, of which the first is elevated like a tall sail, the first ray standing up a long way beyond the membrane. Its colour is smoke-brown, deeper at the summit; towards the hind end of this portion there is a large round black spot, surrounded by a well-defined pale ring; very conspicuous, indeed, in my specimens, and strikingly suggestive of the eye-spots in the wings of many butterflies and moths. As if conscious of its beauty, the fish travels with all sail set, and thus shows its characteristic mark to advantage.

The body is varied with different hues of brown, black, and grey, the deeper colours forming transverse bands on the upper parts; while along each side run two rows of spots of pearly azure, defined by a dark edge.

Just in front of each eye there is a small appendage which looks like a small horn, with the tip and edge cut into segments; it is but a projection of the skin. Several other species of the genus have similar ornaments on various parts of the face and head: I have no conception of their use in the economy of the tribe.