158 The Ottawa Naturalist. [November 



The white or yellowish eels, occasionally found, owe the dis- 

 appearance of color to nervous causes due to sex, and the enlarge- 

 ment of the eyes is connected with the same cause, of a nervous 

 and emotional nature. 



Psychological or, as I prefer to distinguish them " Emotional" 

 colors, are apparently due to intense temporary nervous states, 

 recalling the "pallor, "or the "redness"in the human face due to fear 

 or to anger respectively. The cuttle-fishes rapidly change color, 

 becoming red, green, or yellow under different emotional states, 

 which influence the nerves affecting the chromatophores or large 

 pigment spots, and iridescent plates in the integument A captive 

 Octopus when annoyed by a goad assumes a deep crimson color 

 as though red with rage. Many fishes assume the most varied, 

 often extremely beautiful colors, when dying. The large moon- 

 fish or opah {Lampns luna) exhibits flitting rainbow tints, while 

 the 3-spined stickleback (the male at least) acquires a deep scarlet 

 tint about the throat, and the sides glisten with golden green. 

 The 10-spined stickleback (G. pungitius) becomes inky black about 

 the throat and abdomen, paler on the sides, before death. Sex 

 coloration may be included under the heading "emotional" and 

 what is called "sexual selection" is probably wholly secondary 

 and subordinate in spite of Darwin's famous observations on the 

 subject. Some of the most gorgeously-tinted male animals known 

 to me do not support Darwin's view. Certain Pacific salmon, for 

 example, notably the sockeye (Oncorhynchus nerka) coming in 

 from the sea are of a steel-blue color ; but the males change to a 

 bright rose pink or madder on approaching the spawning grounds. 

 For hundreds of miles countless numbers of these brightly tinted 

 fish may be seen crowding the great rivers of the West. In the 

 shallow upper waters tens of thousands occur in the Fall like 

 struggling armies of "gold fish," 200 to 1,000 miles from the sea. 

 Swiftly through the water foaming over the pebbly shallows, the 

 crowded male fish speed, and fight and kill each other, and the gor- 

 geously colored victors assume greater brilliance under the excite- 

 ment. Anyselection by the more sober-tinted female fish is out of the 

 question in the terrible turmoil and rush. Like the antlers of deer 

 and other seasonal out-growths in various animals, the colors 

 r eferred to are the physical and visible expression of emotional 



