OCEAN PIPEFISH. 357 



vent forward, where that part is flattened for the purpose of 

 sustaining them until they become developed into life, but of 

 which some of the particulars have been better observed in 

 the species next to be described. Mr. Andrews adds, "I have 

 noticed S. cequoreus greedily stripping the stems of Zostera 

 marina of the young of Antliea cereus, which were attached in 

 a semiglutinous state." 



AVhat I have considered the Ocean Pipefish has been met 

 with under such considerable difference of structure as to raise 

 the supposition that if the variation is not to be ascribed to 

 accident or monstrosity, it must be the mark of a distinct 

 species hitherto not known among British fishes. On this 

 account it is judged proper to give a separate description of 

 each of these supposed species or varieties, with characteristic 

 figures, by means of which a further inquiry may enable an 

 observer to decide the truth of the matter. 



It was in July, which is the season when these and the 

 kindred fish are most commonly and abundantly seen, that an 

 example now to be described was thrown on shore in a storm; 

 and on examination it proved to be a female with fully 

 enlarged roe. It measured twenty-two inches in length, where 

 deepest measuring an inch; the body much more compressed 

 than in the other known kinds of British Pipefishes, and which 

 is the acknowledged character of the Ocean Pipefish, but 

 scarcely or not at all angular from the dorsal to the ventral 

 ridge; the plates not to be counted when the fish was newly 

 from the water; but the perpendicular lines numbered fifty- 

 eight, the first obscure, the second crooked, and the order 

 continued more than an inch beyond the vent. It was found 

 that two of these lines answer to a single plate. Above the 

 eye less elevated than in the S. acus, rising above the gill- 

 cover; from the snout to the hindmost border of the eye an 

 inch, and to the border of the gill-plate an inch and seven 

 lines, to the vent less than half the whole length. Two thirds 

 of the dorsal fin before the line of the vent, with forty-two 

 rays; but what especially marked this example, in common 

 with that one presently to be described, and differing from all 

 other of our known species, was (in this case) a narrow 

 membrane, which ran along the ridge of the back to near 

 the dorsal fin. In the present instance this dorsal ridge 



