GREAT PIPE-FISH. 



437 



about in a singular manner, horizontally or perpendicularly, 

 with the head downwards or upwards, and in every attitude 

 of contortion, in search of food, which chiefly seems to be 

 water insects." 



From the great similarity in the form and size of the 

 mouth in all the species, it is probable that their food is also 

 similar. Worms, small mollusca, young and minute thin- 

 skinned Crustacea, and the ova of other fishes, are among the 

 substances taken ; and these Syngnathi are supposed to be 

 able, by dilating their throat at pleasure, to draw their food 

 up their cylindrical beak-like mouth, as water is drawn up the 

 pipe of a syringe. 



From the point of the tubular mouth to the posterior 

 edge of the indurated portion of the operculum, the length 

 is, when compared to the whole length of the fish, as one 

 to eight ; if measured to the edge of the shoulder, it is as one 

 to seven and a half, and this proportion exists in specimens of 

 various ages or lengths, from six inches to eighteen ; from the 

 mouth to a projecting point at the anterior edge of the eye, 

 and thence to the origin of the pectoral fin, the distances are 

 equal : the jaws united, tubular, slightly compressed ; in 

 depth but one-third that of the head at its deepest part, 

 which is in a vertical line with the centre of the operculum : 

 the mouth small, placed at the extremity of the tube, opening 

 obliquely upwards ; the lower jaw the longest : eyes rather 

 large, bony orbits prominent : operculum covered with radia- 

 ting striae : the head between the eyes flattened ; behind the 

 eyes, rising into a keel-like crest, which reaches to the neck : 

 from the pectoral fin to the anal aperture the body is deepest 

 and heptangular, with three ridges along each side, and 

 one along the abdomen, which ends at the vent ; the surface 

 defended by a series of nineteen plates ; throughout the short 

 extent of the dorsal fin the body is hexangular, the ridge of 

 the abdomen being discontinued ; thence to the end of the 



