The Love Affairs of Blennies in the Kelp 233 



catfish, the floating nest of the Paradise fish, and many more, 

 merely saying en passant that in almost every case the female 

 deserts eggs and young, leaving them to the tender care of 

 the male, who is equal to the situation. 



One of the most interesting fishes found in the great kelp 

 beds, more particularly the weed within the kelp along the 

 shores of Southern California, is the so-called kelp fish, a 

 kind of blenny, Meter ostichus rostratus (Girard). It so 

 closely resembles the color of the weed in which it habitually 

 lives that it is almost impossible to distinguish it; indeed, 

 when lying in a boat over the kelp bed, I have often been 

 deceived and taken a frond of waving kelp for the fish, as 

 the latter not only imitates the weed in color, but seems to 

 assume strange postures, either standing on its head or tail 

 in the kelp, so resembling the weed in shape and color that 

 it is almost impossible to see it. The sight, looking down 

 into this forest of weed, is an entrancing one ; its tints, tones 

 and colors, its shades of green and olive, the various shapes, 

 forming a veritable garden of the sea, in which strange and 

 beautiful fishes poise and swim, seemingly set as in a picture 

 against a background of blue. 



I have often seen the kelp fish resting on its head on a 

 leaf of kelp, and swinging to and fro as the wave came in; 

 and during the past year I had an opportunity to watch 

 various specimens in the Santa Catalina Island Aquarium. 

 In the tank were two adult kelp fishes and a smaller fish of 

 another kind. The larger kelp fish, and this was the female, 

 was about nine inches long; the male measured about five 

 inches in length. I was first attracted to them by the savage 

 attacks of the small kelp fish on the stranger, and investiga- 

 tion showed that the male kelp fish was in splendid nuptial 

 colors and was enamored of the female. 



" The normal color of both fishes is a dark reddish-brown 

 or olive, depending upon their surroundings . . . below 

 the lateral line there is a series of light spots, continuous, 

 with a distinct light bar from eye to edge of the opercle, 



