196 SALT-WATER FISHES 



seas, specimens of over 20 in. having been described. Its 

 colours are very variable, but a typical example is deep 

 orange, violet, or blue, with pink on the sides, and lighter 

 beneath. There is a large dark blotch near the hinder end of 

 the dorsal fin, and some examples have another blotch, some- 

 what smaller than the first, just in front of and above the 

 tail-fin. The edge of the front gill-cover is strongly serrated. 

 The dorsal fin has more than twenty-five rays, the majority of 

 them spinous ; but the peculiarity of the dorsal fin is in the 

 presence of scales along each of the rays. There are also scales 

 at the commencement of the tail and anal fins, a condition that 

 we shall also find in the curious fish Pammelas. This is, in 

 fact, the only British wrasse that has scales over the top of the 

 head and on the neck. 



The Rock Cook {Centrolahrus exoletus) is a little brown- 

 and-yellow wrasse with blue bands and marks on the head, 

 silvery fins, and a black line along the dorsal. The latter has 

 more than twenty rays, most of them prickly, and the tail-fin 

 is lighter towards the hinder edge than at the base. The 

 lateral line is distinct, and takes a downward curve beneath the 

 last rays of the dorsal fin. The teeth are in a single row. 



This wrasse, which apparently does not grow longer than 

 4 or 5 in., is often taken in the crab-pots. It is, unlike 

 the last, a northern kind, for Day gives Greenland as within 

 its range, but it is not recorded by him as occurring in 

 the Mediterranean. GUnther, however, mentions a closely 

 allied species from the Mediterranean. 



The Rainbow Wrasse {Coris julis), which grows to a 

 len<?th of about 7 in., exhibits, though in somewhat lesser 

 degree, the sexual colour-differences which were described in 

 the striped wrasse. The male is distinguished by a white band 

 with wavy edges along the sides, and also by a large black spot 

 near the front end of the dorsal fin, the latter having along the 

 lower half of the rays a series of faint purple or green spots. 

 Both sexes have a small but distinct spot on the gill-cover. 



