i94i CATALOGUE OF FISHES OF TORTUGAS j^ 



third is a banded phase displayed when the fish were feeding near a grassy bank 

 or other dark object, but it is not to be associated with the act of feeding pri- 

 marily, for members of the same school feeding over clear sand showed it very 

 faintly or not at all. 

 West Indies to Florida. W. H. L. 



Lagodon rhomboides (Linnaeus). Pinfish 



A floating fish, 250 mm. long, nearly dead, which frigate birds were attempting 

 to pick up is the only mature specimen seen, though the young to 75 mm. were 

 not rare on the grass flats. 



The fish have a relatively uniform as well as a strongly banded phase. In the 

 former the body is striped with alternating bluish and brassy lines. The transition 

 to the latter, so far as I know it as shown in aquarium tanks at night, is accom- 

 plished by contracting the chromatophores in corresponding parts of the darker 

 series and so interrupting them, while at the same time the dark nuclei so formed 

 are knit together in vertical series by the expansion of others in the pale areas 

 between. The chief dark bars so originating are an interorbital, occipital, and 

 humeral, with five others. W. H. L. 



That the adults, at least, are comparatively rare at Tortugas is surprising, as it 

 is a very numerous fish about the wharves and along the shores at Key West. 

 Massachusetts to Texas. S. F. H. 



Diplodus holbrookii (Bean). Spot-tail pinfish 



(Plate 17, figure 2) 



Neither common nor widely distributed. One or more small schools may 

 usually be found along the rocky shore on the east side of Loggerhead Key, and 

 on a bank in the upper of the deep holes in the flats within Bird Key reef. The 

 fish are found rarely in small numbers about coral stacks on the reef. 



The alimentary tract of one specimen examined contained much Thalassia. 



The almost universal color phase is a gray one, countershaded, with a circular 

 black spot covering the anterior half of the caudal peduncle. The coloration is 

 changeable, however, as fish feeding on algae over dark bottom were darker than 

 when over clear sand. At night a pattern of vertical lines is shown. W. H. L. 



To the foregoing preliminary account by Dr. Longley, a later field note may 

 be added : "Young coming to feed about broken sea urchin showed a pattern of 

 transverse dark lines, which has been referred to as a night color. This color 

 flashed on and ofr; a transient phase, which most of the fish did not show." 



Concerning its habitat Dr. Longley noted: "Found on reef in company with 

 Anisotremus virginicus, Littianus griseus, Haemulon sciurus, H. parra, and an 

 occasional school of large Sparisoma radians." Again he observed, "Moving 

 freely among snappers." Another time he wrote, "One with many snappers and 

 other fish about coral head, East Key." 



Florida Keys to Virginia. S. F. H. 



