2i8 PAPERS FROM TORTUGAS LABORATORY vol. xxxiv 



A single fish, 3 to 4 inches in length, was observed showing the pattern of 

 stripes common among parrot fishes. Usually the coloration in this species is 

 nearly uniform robin's-egg blue, washed with yellow on the occiput, and show- 

 ing inconspicuous evidences of stripes about the snout. Yet other phases occur, 

 for a specimen about 250 mm. long resting among rocks in a tank in the New 

 York Aquarium displayed a pattern in which half a dozen light blotches ap- 

 peared plainly on the dorsal fin and dorsal half of the body. Another phase is a 

 very pale one, observed once only in fish in comparatively deep water. 



West Indies to Florida, sometimes straying northward. W. H. L. 



Scarus croicensis Bloch 



(Plate 29, figure 1 ) 



Scarus croicensis Bloch, Naturgesch. ausland. Fische, vol. 4, 1790, p. 27, pi. 221 — St. Croix. 



Scarus insulae-sanctae-crucis Bloch and Schneider, Syst. ichth., 1801, p. 285 — St. Croix. 



Calliodon lineatus Bloch and Schneider, ibid., p. 312, pi. 62, fig. 2. 



Scarus alternans Cuvier and Valenciennes, Hist. nat. poiss., vol. 14, 1839, p. 200 — Mar- 

 tinique. 



Pscudoscarus lineolatus Poey, Repertorio, vol. 2, 1867, p. 239 — Cuba. 



?Scarus evermanni Jordan, in Jordan and Evermann, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 9, i886 r 

 p. 469 — Snapper Banks off Tampa Bay, Florida. 



Callyodon margarita Fowler, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, vol. 69, 1917, p. 133, fig. 

 2 — Colon, Panama. 



Callyodon emblematicus Fowler (not of Jordan and Rutter), ibid., vol. 80, 1928, p. 472 — 

 St. Lucia; ibid., vol. 82, 1930, p. 275 — Grenada. 



Even from his partly digested type of Scarus evermanni Jordan inferred that 

 his specimen was very close to S. croicensis. So close, indeed, are they that perfect 

 specimens of evermanni seem without exception to have been passed as croicensis 

 by Jordan and his collaborators. Whether the two, however, are identical is a 

 question taken up again below. 



Scarus evermanni Jordan is the commonest parrot fish at Tortugas. In com- 

 pany with S. punctulatus it abounds over the reefs. The young occur in Thalassia 

 about Long Key and adjacent islets. 



A pattern of stripes is almost conventional dress. The dark ocular stripe is 

 separated by light interspaces from similarly colored dorsal and pectoral stripes, 

 and ventrally the countershaded body verges toward white. Low on the side are 

 three sharp, thin dark lines on as many rows of scales. When the fish is swim- 

 ming, the striped pattern may be replaced by self-color, of which the brown or 

 gray repeats the color of alga-covered or sandy bottom. In a gray phase with 

 yellow wash over the snout, the fish are very like young and pale S. caeruleus. 

 Sometimes the swimming fish may show a tendency toward mottling. This has 

 not been seen fully developed in free fish, but at night in tanks the mottled pat- 

 tern appears, wherein the nape and top of head are light, with three vertical lines 

 on the cheek, dividing the head into sectors; body banded, the two foremost 

 bands, under anterior part of dorsal, united to form a Y; two others, also under 

 dorsal; and two on caudal peduncle; iris changeable with the general shade of 

 body. 



Scarus croicensis is widely distributed in the West Indies. Besides other lots„ 



