i 9 4i CATALOGUE OF FISHES OF TORTUGAS 201 



and uniting distally in a regularly undulating submarginal line of blue; an 

 irregular elongate patch of silver behind pectoral, and in part covered by it, fol- 

 lowing roughly the superior and posterior margin of the body cavity, often per- 

 sisting for a very long time in alcohol. 



A foot from the bottom is nearly as high as these fish are used to swimming, 

 careening swiftly about at that level. Where they swim, their delicate coloring 

 blends well with the pale tints of sand and water all around. The young display 

 the same tendency as the adults to reproduce the shade of their surroundings, 

 and a like tendency toward handedness when resting and the plain phase when 

 swimming, including a diffuse longitudinal stripe through eye and along lateral 

 line. A small fish of 45 mm. was yellow, though they are usually browner. It had 

 three faint blue lines on cheeks; dorsal slightly rosy; anal with indications of the 

 blue pattern earlier mentioned; first dorsal rays scarcely elevated. 



With increase in size the number of vertical stripes on the cheek increases, and 

 the pattern is complicated by complete or partial splitting of those first appear- 

 ing. At no stage in the development is there the least trace of the ventral banding 

 that distinguishes the fish which Poey called Xyrichthys venustus, and which 

 Cuvier and Valenciennes named Xyrichthys lineatus. 



Several stomachs examined contained crabs and fragments of mollusk shells. 



West Indies to Florida and sometimes northward at least as far as North 

 Carolina. W. H. L. 



Xyrichthys ventralis Bean 



Xyrichthys ventralis Bean, Bull. U. S. Fish Comm., vol. 8, 1888 (1890), p. 198, pi. 29, 

 fig. 1 — Cozumel Island, Yucatan. 



Cryptotomus retractus B. A. Bean (not of Poey), The Bahama Islands, Baltimore Geog. 

 Soc, 1905, p. 317 — Eleuthera and Clarence harbor, Bahamas. 



Xyrichthys argentimaculatus Breder (not of Steindachner), Bull. Bingham Oceanog. Coll., 

 vol. r, art. 1, 1927, p. 66 — Cay Sal Bank, Bahamas; Alligator Reef, Florida. 



Novaculichthys rosipes Breder (part, nos. 270-273, not of Jordan and Gilbert), Bull. Bing- 

 ham Oceanog. Coll., vol. 1, art. 1, 1927, p. 67 — Bahamas. 



Xyrichthys venustus Parr (not of Poey), Bull. Bingham Oceanog. Coll., vol. 3, art. 4, 1930, 

 p. 93 — Turks Island, Bahamas. 



Xyrichthys splendens Parr (not of Castelnau), ibid., p. 95— Bahamas. Beebe and Tee- Van, 

 Zoologica, vol. 13, 1932, p. 120 — Bermuda. 



The young were caught from time to time on sandy patches in turtle grass. 

 These are fish of sandy bottom and open water. They bury themselves at night. 

 If followed closely, they may go repeatedly to the same spot and hide by darting 

 head foremost out of sight under sand, but unlike Xyrichthys psittacus, they 

 heap up no rubble. 



In color pattern and shade they are very changeable. Pale streaks on the head 

 separate narrow bars of ground color; trunk with brown lines in two diagonal 

 series defining pale spots on scales; five broad and irregular bands sometimes 

 shown, the first at nape and under dorsal origin, the last at base of caudal, those 

 under bases of dorsal and anal extending on these fins. In a more sharply banded 

 phase these are divided unequally, being alternately narrow and broad, and more 



