DKEP-NOSEI) nrKKISII. 



(i77 



iiiilixi' liaunts of the fishes, after some time we may 

 make an extremely interesting observation. The leaves 

 of the seaweed ha\c |iartl\- risen vertieally or ol)li((Uel\' 

 throuu'h the water, and stimd motionless, slowlv swa\- 

 ing to and tro if ilic ;H|uarium be slightlv shaken. 

 Among them, motionless or swaying with the leaves, 

 the slender Pipefishes have ehosen their positions, and 

 we can onl\' just sei; iiow the gill-eovers ex|)aiul and 

 contract, or how tlie perfccth- transparent dorsal lin 

 eeaselessh' continues its \il)rating and undulating mo- 

 tion. The colour of the fishes, often clown to the most 

 delicate shades, is exactly like that of the seaweed. 

 ( Iften we imagine that we are gazing at a blade of 

 seaweed, and only on closer inspection do we discover 

 that it is a Pipefish, and rice reisa. The same light or 

 dark, green or yellowisli green hue covers both sea- 

 weed and Pipefishes; the singular, lighter tint of green 

 which the former sometimes shows in isolated patches, 

 is faithfullv reproduced in the latter. Among the 

 green, still living seaweed there lie here and there a 

 number of partly or entirely dead leaves, in all shades 

 of colour from green to dirty-brown and brownish 

 black. At these spots the Pipefishes assume a different 

 hue, their colour passing gradually, according to their 

 different surroundings, into I)rown or brownish black, 

 until, whether their position be vertical or horizontal, 

 they are scarcely to be distinguished from a dead blade 

 of seaweed. — The time occupied by this adaptation of 

 colour varies consideral)ly. Mechanical irritation of the 

 skin and psychical irritation seem distinctly to ac- 

 celerate the process. Large Pipefishes, which were 

 (|uite dark when taken in the hand, at once assume 

 a i)ale green colour, all the time struggling violently 

 to get loose; and if they are transferred to a vessel 

 with darker bottom, their dark coloration returns pretty 

 soon. Full-grown Pipefishes, if left undisturlied, seem 

 to require at most an hour to change colour; but in 

 young specimens, about 2' .-, cm. long, which have just 

 emerged from the marsupium, the change is effected 

 with extreme rapidity, in a fraction of a minute. — 

 The inner layers of the skin contain greenish yellow 

 chi'omatophores, the ( inter layers darker ones, black 

 when contracted, brown when expanded. The contrac- 

 tion of tlie latter, which affoi-ds a beautiful sight under 

 the microscope, may take place with astonishing ra- 

 pidity. The handsome, stellate figures of the chromato- 

 phores, which at man}' spots appear to be united by 

 their projections, distinctly shrink until they form small 



ch)ts, with (ine or two grains of pigment detached from 

 the central mass of colour. I have not been able to 

 ubservi' tlic contraction and expsmsion of the greenish 

 \-ellow chromatdphiires, which ^vould tinis seem to per- 

 form their alteraticins much more slowly tiian tli(^ d;ii-k 

 chromatophores. The light cells never expand into 

 figures of so varied form as the black." 



Our figure (Plate XXIX, hg. 1) represents a spe- 

 cimen of the grcicn variety. 



The geograj)iiieal range of the Deejj-nosed Pi])e- 

 fisli extends along tlie whole west coast of luu'ojie, 

 from Norwegian Finnnirk to (libraltar. Trcnnso Mu- 

 seum received it in 1881, according to ('oi.lett, fi'om 

 Belstad Fjord, a little south of TromsO; and according 

 to LiLLJEBOKG Upsala Museum has received it through 

 Professor Th. Fkie.s from ^'adso. On tlie soutii coast 

 of Scandinavia it is vei'y common, and it |ienetrates into 

 the Baltic at least to the south of the (Julf of Bothnia 

 and almost to the head of the Gulf of Finland (Mela). 

 In the island-belt of Stockholm, according to Sunde- 

 VALL, it is i)lentiful wherever Fuciis rcsiciilosns grows 

 luxuriantly. In the island-belt of Morko it is taken 

 in quantities, according to Ekstuom, when the seine is 

 drawn for other fish, except during May and June, when 

 it seldom, if ever, visits the shores or the shallows. 

 On the coast of (iothland it is eonunon among Znsfern 

 marina, according to Lixdstrom. It is quite as com- 

 mon, if not more so, in the south and west of the 

 Baltic, on the west coast of Sweden, on the Danish 

 coast, and on tlie south coast of Norway. Further 

 north and further south it grows less common, and is 

 said to be rare in the Mediterranean, where its place 

 is taken to a great extent by another sjjccies, Sijn- 

 qnafJius Boiideh'tii, with deeper snout (least depth of 

 the snout greater than the depth of the body at the 

 beginning of the tail), shorter dorsal fin (length (jf the 

 base less than 11 'j "a of that of the body), and more 

 rings on the trunk (20 or 21), or thus related in the 

 most essential respects to our Deep-nosed Pipefish in 

 the same way as the Great Pipefish to the Lesser 

 species. 



Except in the spawning-season the Deep-nosed Pipe- 

 fish generally keeps close to the shore, in a few metres 

 of water or even less, among grass-wrack {Zostera 

 marina) and bladder-wrack (Fucus resiculostis), where 

 it has .shrimps and their young, small crustaceans, 

 minute mollusks, and worms as its usual comrades and 

 principal diet. Young fishes and tiny Gobies also fall a 



