FOOD AND FANCY FISHFS. 295 



Vis under the title of Odax ncbnlosns. Tiie majority of the Labridas are associated in Queensland 

 waters with the coral banks and groves of the Great Barrier system, where they vie in colour 

 with the hues of the living polyps among which they roam. Chromo plate No. XV. is exclusively 

 and No. XVI. is, in great measure, devoted to the illustration of some of the more remarkably tinted 

 of the innumerable Barrier species ; but the delineations, notwithstanding the brilliance of the 

 pigments used, fail to do justice to the marvellous hues of the living fish. Among this series, all 

 the forms represented in Chromo plate XV. are wholesome eating. The species, Pseudoscants 

 riviilatits, represented by the lowermost figures, Nos. 4 and 5 in this plate, is particularly so ; and 

 as these fishes may attain to a weight of more than five pounds, they contribute substantially, 

 where abundant, to the fisherman's commissariat. This "Parrot fish " is essentially gregarious, and 

 is often left in shoals of a score or more in the coral lagoons, such as that depicted in Plate IX. of 

 the phototype series, when the tide is down. To stand up to your knees, or higher, in water, with 

 such a shoal of magnificent fish swimming round you, is an experience worthy of a journey to 

 the tropics. It is, however, like a dream of paradise, liable to be rudely interrupted ; your " native " 

 attendants, most probably, wading in after you with their spears, and dealing wholesale slaughter. 



The disparity of colours between the two fish represented by Figs. 4 and 5 of Chromo 

 plate XV. is such, that they might be reasonably supposed to delineate two distinct varieties. 

 That they, however, only represent the two sexes of a single species, was abundantly proved 

 by their invariable association in the same shoal, supplemented by the fact that the separate 

 sexual elements were, on dissection, found to be restricted to fish of each respective tint. 

 An almost parallel distinction of sexual coloration obtains, it may be mentioned, among fishes, 

 belonging to the same family, the Labridas, that are indigenous to the British seas. Thus, 

 the male of the Cuckoo Wrass, Labriis niixtus, notable for its brilliant blue and orange 

 tints, was for long held to be entirely separate from its altogether distinctly coloured mate, 

 and the latter is accordingly figured in the older standard works on British Fishes under the 

 title of the Three-spotted Wrass, Labnts frii)iaciilatiis. It may be remarked of the Parrot fish 

 Pseudoscarus, now under notice, that, as seen in the water, the females appear from a 

 little distance (and more particularly as seen swimming in the surf) to be an almost intense 

 grass-green throughout, while the males, in like manner, appear more completely suffused with 

 their ground colour of turquoise-blue. 



The rapidity with which the colours of the gorgeously-tinted parrot fishes vanish when 

 taken from the water is deplorable to witness ; and hence it is that the ostensible life-colours 

 recorded in association with their technical descriptions in scientific text-books, entirely fail to 

 convey an idea of their living hues. The magnificent species Chcilinus fasciatus, represented by 

 Fig. 3 of Chromo plate XV., resplendent in life with a livery of scarlet, black, and softer greys, is 

 described in Day's "Fishes of India" as "yellowish, with dark or black bands," the description 

 being apparently that of a spirit-preserved example. The specimen here figured and coloured 



