3 o 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



bordered with a nacreous white line, adorn the body ; one of these 

 stripes crosses the eye obliquely ; a second one, bisecting the nape of 

 the neck, extends to the ventral fins ; the next two mark the flanks, 

 and the posterior stripe bisects the root of the caudal fin. 



The long-beaked Chelmon's body is yellow. Instead of the 

 stripe crossing the eye, seen in the other species, we find on the ante- 

 rior portion of the body a broad, blackish spot, triangular in shape, 

 and terminating in a point on the snout. This spot is bordered by a 

 nacreous white stripe ; the forehead is of azure tint, with a shade of 

 sea-green ; the eye is of a pure rose-color ; a narrow stripe of black 

 adorns the margin of the fins, which themselves are of mauve-color ; 

 on the posterior part of the anal fin, near its edge, is seen a deep-black 

 spot, encircled by a line of pearly white. 



The Chelmon, particularly the beaked Chelmon, has been de- 

 scribed by Schlosser, under the title of Archer-fish, in the "Philo- 

 so})hical Transactions." The animal is said to obtain its food in a 

 peculiar way, and hence the names given to it by Schlosser (Jaculator) 

 and by the Dutch colonists of the East Indies (Spuytvisch, pump-fish 

 or spitting-fish). 



Lacopede, following the narratives of travelers, tells us that the 

 long-beaked Chcetodon " usually keeps near to the mouths of rivers, 

 and especially frequents places where the water is not deep. It feeds 

 on insects, especially such as live on the marine plants which rise 

 above the surface of the sea. In taking them it resorts to a notewor- 

 thy manoeuvre, which it is enabled to perform by the very elongated 

 form of the snout ; and a similar sort of manoeuvre is performed by 

 the Sparus insidator, the bellows-chsetodon, and other fishes, with 

 very long, very narrow, and nearly cylindrical beak, like that of the 

 animal we are now describing. When the archer espies an insect 

 which it wishes to seize, but which is flying too high above the sur- 

 face to be captured by leaping out of the water, it approaches as near 

 as possible to its prey, then it fills its mouth-cavity with water, shuts 

 its gill-openings, suddenly compresses its little slit of a mouth, and, 

 ejecting rapidly the water through the very narrow tube which forms 

 its snout, squirts it often to the distance of two metres, and that with 

 such force that the insect is stunned and falls into the sea. The per- 

 formance is so amusing that rich people throughout the greater part 

 of the East Indies keep long-beaked Chcetodons in large vessels." 



Block, in his " History of Fishes," which was published at the 

 close of the last century, tells us, on the authority of Mynheer Hom- 

 mel, inspector of the Batavia Hospital, that the bandouliere or beaked 

 Chmtodon has a very singular way of procuring food. " Observe," 

 says Bloch, "how this fish ensnares the flies it discovers on the marine 

 plants which project above the water. It approaches within four to 

 six feet of the insect, and then squirts water upon it with such force 

 that it never fails to bring it down and make it its prey." Mynheer 



