50 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[March 1, 1866. 



the season of winter, and every bank and unfre- 

 quented wild would furnish a secure asylum for 

 them and their offspring during the period of incu- 

 bation. The passage to our shores is a long and 

 dangerous one, and some imperative motive for it 

 must exist ; and, until facts manifest the reason, we 

 may, perhaps, without injury to the cause of research, 

 conjecture for what object these perilous transits are 

 made." 



The l'ecord of periodic phenomeua made in the 

 same district over a scries of years is always of in- 

 terest ; but contemporaneous records made at nume- 

 rous stations, distant from each other, and in which 

 the same kind of observations are made, would be 

 of more interest still. Take, for instance, the first 

 appearance of a swift for ten successive years in 

 twenty stations between the Isle of Wight and 

 Caithness ;' or the last note of the cuckoo heard 

 between the Land's End and the Tweed. Many 

 such trifles, apparently insignificant in themselves, 

 become of importance when carefully and faithfully 

 recorded, and such a work may be accomplished by 

 those who make no pretensions to be men of 

 science, but are content to call themselves "lovers 

 of nature." 



ODD FISHES. 



rTniERE are quiet, steady-going, stay-at-home 

 -*- fishes, quite content with the rocky shores of 

 our "tight little island ;" as a rule, arrayed in sober- 

 coloured garments, like well-dressed English folk 

 are wont to be, all the world over : there are " dan- 

 dies " in Eastern seas, more like fragments of the 

 Aurora, or rainbows bathing, than real fish, so 

 brightly are they robed, in pinks, blues, yellows, 

 purples, greens, gold, and orange : there are disagree- 

 ably greedy fishes, blessed with keen appetites, good 

 digestion, and shai - p teeth, — dangerous neighbours, 

 deservedly shunned and disliked : there are " gentle- 

 men " fishes, famous for their domestic virtues, that 

 build nests like birds, and, in the matter of wives, 

 boast harems that would beat a Mussulman or a 

 Mormon into fits : there are " ocean swells," that 

 most of us love, and look at simply, and only, as 

 things to be devoured : and, lastly, there are " odd 

 fishes," peculiar in everything; some, round as a 

 globe, are covered with spines like a porcupine ; 

 some, armed with horns, are like marine bulls. 

 There are "insect-fish," "bird-fish," and others, 

 according to old writers, that "feedeth on herbs, 

 and cheweth the cud like to the beasts." We find 

 ugly monsters, like antediluvian leviathans re- 

 vivified, half salmon, half shark, with a strong ad- 

 mixture of conger eel, — flabby, scaleless giants. 

 The Silurus Glank (Sly SUurus), one of the clique, 

 has been brought from the Danube, and turned into 



our quiet streams, and should it live and flourish, 

 will prove a " caution to anglers." Of what avail 

 the trolling-rod and Jack -tackle, to a beast that bolts 

 a baby, and rather likes it, as we should an acid- 

 drop. The enthusiastic follower of the gentle art 

 will be obliged to bait with a sheep, and use a cable 

 and steam-power lifting-engine, to land his prize. 



I am induced to select for description a few of the 

 oddest of odd fishes, in the hope of stirring up in 

 my young friends a desire to know more of Nature's 

 wonders. Should you visit the sea-side during the 

 coming summer, or, still better, if you live near it, 

 devote a little leisure to investigating rock-pools, 

 fishers' nets, and crab-pots, where you can fish out 

 more wonders than Colonel Stodare or Professor 

 Anderson ever dreamed of. Peep into any little 

 rock-basin or dark weedy cleft, or, turning up the 

 bladder-wrack, hunt the hollows it hides, and you 

 will discover hosts of oddities; — spotted gobies, re- 

 sembling flowers more than fishes ; pugnacious 

 crabs, that square their fighting arms at the shortest 

 notice, and sidle off, twirling their hard eyes de- 

 fiantly ; irritable star-fish, with arms like serpents, 

 whose custom is to break themselves into bits, and 

 die in fragments if you touch them ; chitons, that 

 roll up like armadilloes ; hermit-crabs, that live rent- 

 free in the houses of others : — but, enough, look for 

 yourselves. As we cannot very well enjoy a rock- 

 ramble in these wet and windy days, the next best 

 thing is to visit the " oceans in glass " at the aqua- 

 rium house at the Zoological Gardens, where we can 

 quietly observe several odd fish, w r ith one of which 

 I shall begin my story. 



In the fish-tanks opposite the door, you may see 

 a number of stiff, taper, horny-looking creatures, 

 with long snout-like noses, certainly not ornament- 

 ing their wizened, shrivelled, ugly faces. They 

 never appear to be enjoying life, or exercising their 

 fins in submarine frolics, but float listlessly and 

 lazily, as if, having nothing to do, they felt proud of 

 doing it thoroughly. On reference to the illustra- 

 tion at the base of the sea in glass, we learn these 

 odd fish belong to the family Syngnathidce, or 

 pipe-fishes, the generic name, Syngnathus (Gr. sun, 

 together, gnathos, a jaw), is in allusion to the 

 mouth, which is stretched out into a horn-like tube ; 

 through it, minute mollusks, crustaceans of tender 

 age, and even tiny fishes, are sucked in and swal- 

 lowed. The action of this queer mouth is precisely 

 on the principle of the common water-squirt ; the 

 throat dilates, and the water flows through the tube- 

 mouth, carrying in with the current, anything suf- 

 ficiently small to enter, just as you suck water from 

 a pool or saucer with a syringe, by drawing up the 

 piston and causing a partial vacuum, — the water is 

 forced into the nozzle, together with any material 

 floating in it. 



Perhaps it may be as well to select the species 

 (Syngnathus ocus) most usually found, for description, 



