31 8 Fish Stories 



ing little creature, but I could not make it utter the sounds 

 by annoying it. It resented being touched, not displaying 

 fear but petulance and annoyance, snapping at a stick with 

 which I scratched its back, and displaying decided annoy- 

 ance. It moved when it uttered the sound, as I observed 

 later on, a muscular contraction or bending or lifting seem- 

 ingly being necessary to the production of sound, which 

 doubtless came from the air bladder. 



What the singing fish means by uttering the sound con- 

 stitutes an open question to the reader. It may be involun- 

 tary, it is not in anger, it may be a love song, or a groan of 

 pleasure, or a croak of content like the warble of a hen on 

 a warm, pleasant day, when her mind is at peace. Be that 

 as it may, the singing fish produces a distinctly musical, 

 not inharmionous sound when heard through the medium of 

 water. 



Later I saw at the Stanford Zoological Station at Pacific 

 Grove, a number of the young which were being studied. 

 They looked and acted like young tadpoles, having a striking, 

 though, of course, superficial tadpole-like appearance. 



This peculiar '' canary bird fish " belongs to a singular 

 group called toadfishes, disagreeable-appearing creatures, 

 some of which have the faculty, like the puff shark, of blow- 

 ing themselves up to an extraordinary degree. One, a com- 

 mon toadfish of the Florida reef (Opraniis tan), I caught 

 in great numbers in the opening of a moat at Fort Jefferson 

 and frequently heard its " voice," a combination of grunt 

 and groan, especially when the fish was taken out of the 

 water, and that it utters a " musical " sound is shown by the 

 experience of Captain Charles B. Hudson, who, in painting 

 fishes at Key West far out over the water, frequently heard 

 a musical sound like kung kung, kimg kung. The fisher- 

 men told him that it was the voice of the kung kung fish, 

 called so from the sounds it made, and later Captain Hudson 

 placed a toadfish in a pan of water and caught it in the act 

 of uttering the peculiar note with its musical quality. 



