BEAUTIFUL BUT MILITANT. 33 



THE SERGEANT BAKER FAMILY. 



Sergeant Baker {Aa'opus purpurissatus). 



Plate IX. 



This handsome and excellent food-fish is distributed freely 

 along the whole seaboard of New South Wales, where, in 

 suitable localities, it may be captured by means of hook 

 and line or the trammel-net.* It attains a length of over 

 2 feet, and as a table fish is in great request. 



In form the body of this species is elongate and rounded. 

 The male may be at once recognised by the fact that the 

 second and third rays of the dorsal fin are produced into long 

 filaments, about double the length of the head. 



As will be seen from the following description of the 

 colors, taken from my " Fishes of 'Australia," the Sergeant 

 Baker is very beautiful. The upper surfaces are purple, with 

 a more or less prevailing tinge of red, and with the edges of 

 the scales crimson ; the top of the head being sometimes 

 spotted with the same color. The back and sides have large 

 irregular crimson spots or transverse bands, covering two or 

 three scales in width, not reaching across the abdomen. The 

 sides are of a paler purplish-red than the back, and gradually 

 merge into the pearly- white of the lower or abdominal surface. 

 The dorsal and caudal fins are of a pale yellowish-red, obliquely 

 banded with rows of crimson spots, which are frequently 

 confluent on the caudal lobes. The adipose dorsal fin (which 

 is characteristic of most of the species of the family Scopelidce), 

 is purple along its base and crimson on the upper portion. 

 The anal fin is whitish, or of a pale straw-color ; having 

 across it longitudinal orange bands. The ventral and pectoral 

 fins are yellow, with crimson band's across them. 



Cucumber-Fish {CMorophthalmns nigripinnis). 



This large-eyed fish is one of those of which little was 

 known until the last few years. By the advent of the Trawling 

 Expedition of the " Thetis," in February and March, 1898 — 



* The design on the back of the cover of this work gives an idea of the 

 working of the trammel-net, which is fully described in my " Fishes of Aus- 

 tralia," pp. 245 and 246. 



