PKOTKCTIVK COLORATION". 131 



probable that the pigment is directly transferred to the skin, 

 just as the skin of a man is discoloured by nitrate of silver 

 taken as medicine; in the second place it is very significant, 

 that the red pigment is apparently present in addition to the 

 normal pigments. If natural selection had in the course of 

 long ages brought about the colour resemblance between the 

 fish and their surroundings, it would be, one might fairly 

 imagine, rather by an alteration of the existing pigment than 

 Iby the formation of a fresh pigment red in colour, deposited 

 side by side with the original pigments. It is too remarkable 

 .a coincidence that the fish normally with but little pigment 

 should be when among these weeds bright reel, and that the 

 -fish normally possessing black pigment should be dark red, 

 to permit of a settlement of the question offhand by the easy 

 help of the theory of natural selection without at least some 

 further inquiry. 



Possibly the Gulf-weed fauna is an example of something of 



the kind. Prof. Moseley, in his work " Notes by a Naturalist 



on the GhaUcnt/i'r" comments, as have many other writers, 



upon the extraordinary colour resemblances which exist 



between the animals living upon and among the weed, and 



the weed itself. The Gulf weed is of an olive yellow colour, 



.and " the crabs and shrimps which swarm in the weeds are 



of exactly the same shade of yellow as the weed, and have 



white markings upon their bodies to represent the patches of 



Membranipora. The small fish Antc/utarius * is in the same 



The Aiitri/Kurius referred to is really Pterophryne Jiistrio an apt 

 specific name. It is suggested by a writer in Proc. A cad. Nat. Set. 

 (Philadelphia, 1889, p. 344), that the white patches on theGulf-weed animals 

 imitate the shells of a minute worm Sjiirorbis. The writer also relates 

 that this little fish was first mentioned by Osbeck in 1757, who remarked : 

 " Probably Providence has clothed it in this leaflike manner, in order that 

 the predaceous fishes might confound it with the seaweed, and therefore 



exterminate it." 



