riSH AND PISHERIES. 29 



that of a Iiorse. They are mostly tropical, and they belong to an order 

 which have the gills laminated, but composed of small rounded lobes 

 attached to the branchial arches. The gill-cover is a large simple 

 plate. One wondei'f ul peculiarity in the genus Ilijjpocampiis is that the 

 males carry the eggs in a sac at the base of the tail, opening near the 

 vent. The body is divided into regular rings and transverse ridges, and 

 where these cross each other, the tough, leathery skin has tubercles or 

 points. The tail is square and apparently rigid, but it easily curls up 

 and seizes hold of any object, by means of which it anchors itself. 

 When swimming about the Sea-horse keeps an upright position, but 

 the tail is ready to grasp any object it meets in the water. It quickly 

 entwines in any direction round weeds or other objects, and darts at 

 its prey with great quickness. When the pectoral fins are large and 

 expanded, so as to be like wings, then the Sea-horses are said to belong 

 to another order, Pegasidce, or Flying-horses, of which we have two 

 species in Australia (Fegasus natans, Moreton Bay and Torres Straits, and 

 P. lancifer in Tasmania), but none in New South Wales. 



The Phyllopteryx. 



But of all the curious fishes that ever were seen Phyllopteryx is the 

 most extraordinary. It is the ghost of a sea-horse, with its winding- 

 sheet all in ribbons around it ; and even as a ghost it seems in the very 

 last stage of emaciation, literally all skin and grief. The process of 

 development by which this fish attained to such a state must be the 

 most miserable chapter in the history of "natural selection." If this 

 be the " survival of the fittest," it is easy to understand what has become 

 of the rest. Natural selection must have inflicted upon the family 

 harder terms than those which were imposed on Count Ugolino by his 

 enemies. There is a good likeness of one species in Giinther's Study of 

 Fishes, p. 682. Never did the famishing specti-es of the ancient 

 mariner's experience present such painful spectacles. If these creatures 

 be horses, they must be the lineal descendants of those which were 

 trained to live on nothing, but unfortunately perished ere the experiment 

 had quite concluded. The odd thing about these strange fishes is that 

 their tattered cerements are like in shape and colour to the sea- weed they 

 frequent, so that they hide and feed with safety. Thus the long ends 

 of ribs which seem to poke through the skin to excite our compassion 

 are really " protective resemblances," and serve to allure the prey more 

 efiectually within reach of these awful ghouls. The Phyllopteryx is 

 therefore, in. spite of his rags and emaciation, an impostor, and like many 

 a sturdy human beggar puts on the aspect of misery more effectually to 

 ply his trade. The appendages to the spines are well worth a study. 

 Just as the leaf -insect is imitative of aleaf, and the staff insect of a twig, 

 so here is a fish like a bunch of sea-weed. If this is development, it 

 stopped here only just in time ; one step more and it would have been 

 a bunch of kelp. 



