GREEN WRASS. 31 



permanent green or red, as we believe according to the pre- 

 dominancy of their acid or alkaline affinities. 



But there are species mentioned by foreign naturalists, which 

 in life are said to be constantly marked with a pioponderancy 

 of living green; and as a fish similarly adorned is sometimes 

 met with on our coast, observers have generally agreed to 

 consider it a distinct species, with the name of the Green 

 "Wrass, or Labrus lineatus, the last-mentioned denomination 

 being derived from some streaks of another colour that is seen 

 upon it when of full size. But that the British Green Wrass 

 is truly a separate species is far from certain, and our placing 

 it under a separate name from the last species is rather in 

 deference to the opinion of other writers than from our own 

 judgment. That the situation to which they resort has much 

 influence in producing the colour appears from the fact that 

 those Wrasses which are found along that range of rocks on 

 which the Edclystone lifts its light, and which consequently 

 are several miles from land, are uniformly of a pale green, 

 with some shades or lines of brown; but in other particulars, 

 and especially of form, they are not to be distinguished from 

 the common species. The younger fish are of the brighter 

 green; and I am indebted for a figure of an example in 

 this condition, of the natural size, as represented in the 

 engraving, to William P. Cocks, Esq., of Falmouth, in which 

 harbour it was caught by angling from the rocks. In this 

 example the fin rays enumerated were, in the dorsal twenty 

 firm and ten soft, anal three firm and eight soft, pectoral 

 fourteen, ventral eight, of which three were firm, in the caudal 

 fifteen rays. 



