COLORATION 165 



In an Australian Fish (Plectropoma richardsoni) the pre- 

 valent ground colour of the body is a brilliant carmine, with a 

 tendency to yellow beneath, and diversified on the back and sides 

 with ultramarine spots of almost sapphire-like intensity. 1 Certain 

 Australian species of Beryx (B. affinis and B. mulleri) 2 have a 

 similar ground-colour when freshly caught, but with various 

 opalescent tints, chiefly blue and lilac reflections. In Polynemus 

 vereker* the ground colour is chrome yellow, with darker markings, 

 the pectoral and caudal fins are bright orange, the remaining fins 

 being a lighter shade of the same tint, and by contrast the long 

 free filaments of the pectoral fins are a bright vermilion red. The 

 Velvet-Fish (Holoxenus cutaneus), also a denizen of Australian 

 seas, has a dominant colour of brilliant scarlet vermilion, or a 

 mixture of vermilion and orange. The skin has no scales and 

 presents a singular pilose or velvety appearance. 4 It is, however, 

 in some of the Pacific Trigger-Fishes (e.g. Mbnacantkus) and 

 Coffer - Fishes (species of Ostracion) that the eccentricities of 

 coloration are perhaps most strikingly manifest, for not only are 

 the prevailing colours of the most brilliant description, but the 

 presence of differently coloured bands or stripes, often arranged 

 in complex patterns, adds greatly to the gorgeous and singularly 

 bizarre appearance of these Fishes. To quote one illustration, 

 the male of the Tasmanian Coffer-Fish (Ostracion ornatus) 5 has 

 the back and sides of its body grass-green and its belly pale 

 lemon : the caudal fin is orange-yellow, and the remaining fins a 

 neutral transparent tint. The sides of the trunk and head are 

 traversed by broad, irregular, and somewhat interrupted bands 

 of the most brilliant ultramarine blue, the edges of which are 

 sharply defined by dark chocolate-brown lines. Two or three of 

 the blue body -bands are continued on to the caudal fin, where 

 they curl into characteristic loop -like patterns. The lemon- 

 yellow of the belly is further variegated by a reticulated pattern 

 in pale blue. In the female, formerly regarded as a distinct 

 species, the ground colour is not green but a pale pinkish-grey, 

 or dove-colour, with local flushes of a more decided pink, and the 

 belly is a pure yellow. The blue stripes of the male are repre- 

 sented in the female by comparatively unbroken bands of a rich 

 reddish-brown which, at the bases of the pectoral and dorsal fins, 



1 Saville Kent, The Naturalist in Australia, London, 1897, p. 150. 

 - Ibid. p. 167 3 Ibid. p. 168. 4 Ibid. p. 173. 5 Ibid. p. 188. 



