I2 6 PAPERS FROM TORTUGAS LABORATORY vol. xxxiv 



extent with the nature of their surroundings. When they are about the coral 

 stacks they often retire within them, but the great majority stay outside. About 

 the stacks or on comparatively bare ground on the Bird Key flats they usually lie 

 rather close to the bottom, or more rarely float a yard or so above it. In the dense 

 patches of gorgonians they seem to lie by preference near bottom, in the deep 

 undergrowth, although some float at mid-level and some even rise above the 

 gorgonian tops. 



At dusk the schools break up and scatter over the reefs. The food they gather 

 consists mostly of crustaceans, mollusks, and annelids. On the clay of the annual 

 palolo swarm 1 these worms are eaten in very large numbers. Small ophiurans 

 occur not uncommonly in the stomach contents. 



The yellow grunt is very changeable in coloration. It appears most commonly 

 in what may be called the black-finned phase. It is then marked by a number of 

 longitudinal stripes of blue and yellow in alternation, which by comparison are 

 much more regular than similar markings on other species of the genus. The 

 yellow lines are more brassy on the lower parts of the body, gradually becoming 

 browner the higher they fall in the series. Pale bluish lines on side and head; soft 

 dorsal, and a broad bar covering most of caudal fin, black. In this phase it is 

 very clear that the fish has considerable ability to change its shade in adaptation 

 to that of the substratum. Half-grown fish seen over white-silted turtle grass 

 were very light in color. Sometimes when schooling about bare banks in or near 

 deep holes the fish rise and float a yard up in the open water with Lutianus 

 griseus, and are almost as inconspicuous. Their entire bodies then are gray, and 

 the fins faintly straw color, except the caudal, which is very faintly dusky. When 

 they lie on bare bottom which is not smooth, they sometimes show a mottled or 

 clouded phase. A pattern of stripes sometimes appears in fish one-third grown 

 when they are over alga-covered beach rock, and it may appear in full-grown fish 

 over similarly covered bottom among the gorgonians. The mouth is red within. 



Individuals may engage in pushing with open mouths with others of their 

 species, or with other species of the genus. Sometimes the pose is assumed with 

 wide-open mouth without contact being established. The display sometimes 

 seems to occur without particular cause. At other times it seems to result from 

 intrusion of one upon the privacy or preserve of another. One fish may so meet, 

 one after another, all other fish that approach it. 



Brazil to Florida. W. H. L. 



Haemulon plumieri (Lacepede). Common grunt 



(Plate 14, figure 2; plate 15, figures 1, 2) 



A very common nocturnal feeder that schools by day about coral stacks and 

 among gorgonians. 



It feeds on worms, gastropods, lamellibranchs, and crustaceans. 



In coloration this species is changeable. In its commonest phase about the coral 

 stacks it shows a pattern of longitudinal brassy lines, somewhat wavy, and tend- 



1 Palolo worms are available to the fish only while they spawn, as explained by Dr. 

 Longley (Nat. Geog. Mag., vol. 51, 1927, p. 69; also in Carnegie Inst. Wash. Year Book No. 

 22, 1923, p. 159).— S. F. H. 



