682 



SCANDIXAVIAN FISHES. 



The caudal fin is extremely small, iiuinted, and so 

 fragile that it now and then disappears with age. 



In tlie living fish, accoi'ding to Fkiks, the colora- 

 tion is of ii handsome fiame-yellow or l)i'ownish yellow. 

 Straight across the sides of the trunk and some way 

 along the tail the body is marked with sonniwhat un- 

 dulating, parallel, wiiitisii Ijands, framed with lirown. 

 These bands are arranged in sucli a manner tliat they 

 lie alternately at the middle of a ring of plates, alter- 

 nately on the diamond-shaped space between two rings, 

 the number of the bands thus being double that of the 

 plates. The dorsal carina of the females is edged with 

 blackish brown (Lill.j.). The ventral side is as usual 

 lighter, in the males even whitish. A reddish streak 

 runs from the tip of the snout to each eye and so on 

 across the temples to the gill-opening. 



The .Equoreal Pipefish was known as a Scandi- 

 navian species to Strom (Sondm. Beskr., 1762), but 

 was first introduced into the Swedish fauna by Fries. 

 It had been described from Scotland by Sibbald in 

 1684; and the centre of its geographical range seems 

 to lie on the coast of Great Britain. It is common 

 among the Orkneys and Shetlands as well as on the 

 west coast of France. It also occurs in the Mediter- 

 ranean and tiie Black Sea (Pallas"); Init it does not 

 penetrate into the Baltic, though from the Cattegat it 

 enters the Sound, where Nilsson met with it on several 

 occasions off Landskrona. According to Winther it 

 also enters Liim Fjord. To the north, according to 

 Collett, it is a stationary fish "almost u].) to Tromso." 



Fries, who has left in the Royal Museum numerous 

 specimens of the ^Equoreal Pipefish from Bohusliln, 

 found it to occur sparingly, though not rarely, in that 

 locality, among the seaweeds that fringe the seaward 

 side of the island-belt. Kroyer says that it is met 

 with fairly often in the Cattegat, though in compara- 

 tively deep water. Mal.m, who oljtained his large spe- 

 cimens in 6 — 14 fath(jins of water, and found only 

 small ones at a depth of 2 — 4 fathoms, makes the 

 same statement of BohusliVn. At Tyl5, off Halmstad, 

 we have found young specimens 14 cm. long, also in 

 about 2— 4 fathoms of water. 



"Tiiis species," says Couch'', "is more especially an 

 inhabitant of the open ocean, where in summer our 



fishermen repoi-t that they see it near the surface over 

 a depth of more tlian fifty fathoms, at a distance from 

 land of ten or fifteen leagues. ' "Sometimes," he says 

 in anotlier passage', "it abounds in iucalculal)le numbers 

 from near the shore to several miles in the open sea; 

 and it is then they appear to jjerform a ])erhaps limited 

 migration or change of quarters; for they swarm at 

 the surface in fine weather from tlie early part of sum- 

 mer to its declension; l)ut after, this time they are not 

 seen, and probably have gone to the bottom, and into 

 deeper water. When on our coast their actions are 

 amusing, as \\\\\\ their slender and prehensile tail they 

 lay hold of some loose and floating object; with the aid 

 of which, and the anterior portion of the body free, 

 they steer their wandering course by the waving action 

 of the dorsal fin." Their progress thus costs them but 

 little trouble; but they also run great risk of being 

 devoured by fishes-of-prey. The stomach of a Pollack 

 has been found, according to Couch, to be crammed 

 with /Equoreal Pipefish. 



The ^Equoreal Pipefish spawns in summer. The 

 male and female attach themselves beside each other 

 to some sprig of sea-iveed or stalk of grass- wrack'', and 

 the eggs are imbedded in the layer of mucus deve- 

 lojjed on the ventral side of the male, from the vent 

 to the isthmus. This layer h;irdens into a solid disk, 

 Avhich, at least at the beginning of the period of gesta- 

 tion, may be peeled from tlie Ijelly, though it then 

 leaves in the skin traces of the honeycombed depres- 

 sions which have been occupied by the eggs. The eggs 

 are considerably smaller than those of the Deep-nosed 

 Pipefish, but also far more numerous. In a female 

 44 cm. long the ovaries were 84 mm. in lengtli and 

 the eggs about ' ., mm- in diameter. 0\\ the ventral 

 side of a male, where at the middle of tlie lengtii of 

 the belly the eggs were set in 12 or 13 somewhat irre- 

 gular, longitudinal rows, the largest eggs Avere not 

 much more than \'o mm. in diameter. The narrow 

 embryos lie coiled in several rings within the egg; 

 when 1 1 mm. long they have burst the membrane, but 

 lie with the head fixed in the cavity where thej' were 

 developed. The head is far less developed than in the 

 larva^ described by Fries of Nerophis litmbricifoniiis 

 (Plate XXIX, fig. 4, a)\ but the form of the body is 



" Rathke did not find if, liowever, among tlie fishes cf (lie Black Sen 



'' Fish. Brit, hi., vol. IV, p. :i5G. 



' ibid., p. 359. 



<< Andrews, Zoologist, vol. XVIII (1860), p. 7053. 



