i94i CATALOGUE OF FISHES OF TORTUGAS 295 



sand and dead coral, color changes were observed in captive fish which without 

 doubt resulted from the surroundings, as the fish were green if among or over 

 the plants and gray if over sand and coral. In pattern they may be almost self- 

 color, or much mottled, or striped. In the striped phase the main stripe runs from 

 eye, past dorsal margin of gill aperture, to middle of base of caudal; three 

 parallel stripes run upward and backward below the main one, the first meeting 

 the chief stripe slightly behind middle of body; the next running to posterior 

 end of anal fin; and the third just above base of anal throughout its length; a 

 line from eye to upper angle of base of caudal, bounded dorsally by a light line; 

 and another dark stripe above it. 



In tanks the fish commonly rests head downward beside blades of turtle grass 

 or other vertical objects, as it does in nature, according to scanty observation. 



W.H.L. 



Many specimens, 35 to 112 mm. long, are included in the collection. There is 

 exceedingly great variation among specimens, even of the same length, in the 

 development of the ventral flap, and also in the size of the spines on the caudal 

 peduncle. Modified or enlarged scales, however, seem to be present always on 

 the peduncle, even in the smallest specimens at hand, wherein it differs from 

 M. hispidus, which has no modified scales and none with especially enlarged 

 spines on the peduncle at any age. The often published figures of Jordan and 

 Evermann (Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., No. 47, pt. 4, 1900, pi. 249, figs. 634, 635) do 

 not bring out this apparently constant difference. The choice of a specimen for 

 illustration, if indeed it was M. ciliatus, was an unfortunate one, as there is not 

 one adult among the many at hand, including also some material from Panama, 

 in which the ventral flap is as small as shown in Jordan and Evermann's figure. 

 I can see no character in the drawing which definitely identifies it with M. ciliatus. 



Atlantic coast of tropical America, ranging northward at least as far as North 

 Carolina. S. F. H. 



Monacanthus hispidus (Linnaeus) 1 



The young were found in abundance in turtle grass off Long Key and else- 

 where, and also in the open sea with floating Sargassum. Larger fish were caught 

 in the 10-fathom channels within the lagoon, and from rather deeper water 

 outside Bird Key reef. They also occasionally visited the sandy waste north of 

 Loggerhead Key. 



In 100 specimens the counts of dorsal and anal rays range from 29 to 34 in the 

 former, and 28 to 34 in the latter (the most frequent combinations being D. 31 

 to 33; A. 31 to 33), a condition quite distinct from that in M. oppositus Poey, the 

 average number of dorsal and anal fin supports being about four greater, if 

 Meek and Hildebrand's Panama material is representative. These authors (Field 



1 Dr. Longley did not list synonyms in his unfinished manuscript, but in his copy of the 

 Check list (1930, p. 494) he indicated that he would add Monacanthus spilonotus Cope 

 (Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc, vol. 14, 1871, p. 476) to the already long list of synonyms in 

 that book. In Carnegie Inst. Wash. Year Book No. 32 (1933, p. 294) he indeed published 

 M. spilonotus as a synonym of M. hispidus. — S. F. H. 



