9 o 



PAPERS FROM TORTUGAS LABORATORY vol. xxxiv 



3.8 (3.3). D. VI-I,8 (VI-I,8); A. 11,8 (11,8) ; scales largely lost in both specimens, 

 about 20 pockets in lateral line; gill rakers on lower limb of first arch 9 (10). 



This species, as already indicated, differs conspicuously from A. stellatus in the 

 much shorter ventral fins, which in 3 specimens before me reach only to the 

 vent, whereas in A. stellatus, in a dozen or more specimens examined, they reach 

 well beyond the origin of the anal, usually about opposite the middle of the base, 

 and sometimes to the end of the anal base. 



West Indies to North Carolina. S. F. H. 



Apogonichthys stellatus Cope 



Apogonichthys stellatus Cope, Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc, vol. 13, 1869 (1866?), p. 400 — 



Nassau, Bahamas. 

 Apogonichthys puncticulatus Poey, Repertorio, vol. 2, 1867, p. 233 — Cuba. 

 Apogonichthys strombi Plate, Zool. Anz., vol. 33, 1908, p. 393 — Bahamas. 

 Apogonichthys melampodus Blosser, Ann. Carnegie Mus., vol. 6, 1909, p. 296 — St. Croix. 



Apogonichthys practices oral gestation, as is demonstrated by a specimen of 

 A. puncticulatus (= stellatus) in the Museum of Comparative Zoology. My lone 

 observation on the time of breeding at Tortugas is that the abdomen of a female 

 taken on August 6 was greatly distended with roe. 



Living Pinna shells on the flats inside Bird Key reef often contain this fish. 

 On one occasion 23 of the mollusks were harboring 8 guests, lodging them, so to 

 speak, in the attic, that space between the broad upper ends of the valves that the 

 soft parts do not continually reach. Others came from a dead shell of the same 

 sort. I have gathered "Spanish oysters" in other places, however, and obtained 

 no inquilines, so it appears that the association is not everywhere equally inti- 

 mate. One fish was taken from the shell of a living Strombus gigas, and from 

 dead shells of the same species numbers of others were removed. One was found 

 hidden in the frail empty test of a great and rare spatangoid, and others were 

 secured in the mixed catches of seine or trawl. 



This species is found during the day under such shelter as has been mentioned. 

 From its behavior in the aquarium it seems that it is a nocturnal creature, as are 

 most of its near relatives, for it hides all day under stones or other shelter pro- 

 vided, but at night it swims about freely. 



Its color is highly changeable. At night in an enameled bucket it may be so 

 pale as to be scarcely visible against the white background, but by day it is 

 usually dark brown with one line still darker, among others, running obliquely 

 down and back across the cheek. The borders of the soft dorsal and caudal fins 

 are narrowly white-margined. There is a phase, too, in which, in addition to the 

 oblique line from the eye, a dark bar crosses the nape and two broad bands are 

 present under the dorsal fins. 



This changeability in color explains in part the multiplicity of names the 

 species has. The scales in the lateral line of the type of A. puncticulatus (Mus. 

 Comp. Zool. no. 9695) are not 30, but 24 to the base of the caudal. The caudal fin 

 is rounded neither in the type of A. puncticulatus nor in that of A. stellatus, but 

 emarginate in both. W. H. L. 



