1902^ Coloration in Tropical Fishes 



Certain damsel fishes (locally taupou, the literal 

 cognate of the West Indian demoiselle and doncella) 

 fairly flaunt every shade of blue enlivened by vivid 

 golden or scarlet. These forms, however, are as 

 quick as chain lightning and amazingly adroit at 

 darting into crevices; apparently they have no need 

 of protective coloration. Equally defiant are the Coatsof 

 many species of butterfly fishes, bright yellow, fan- ^^">' 

 tastically striped, streaked, or spotted with blue or 

 black. Bizarre "rainbow" fishes adorned with 

 every possible hue also abound; and in the deeper 

 channels live crimson soldier fishes, parrot fishes, and 

 surgeon fishes, reckless to absurdity in their lavish 

 use of fancy colors and of freakish "recognition 

 marks" as elaborate in pattern as a Navajo blanket. 

 One of these was originally described by Lacepede as 

 having along its side "two rows of Chinese charac- 

 ters" in bright emerald-green on a coral-red ground. 

 Another, equally common, shows the same design in 

 red on a grass-green background. As a matter of 

 fact, no bird or flower in any land is more gayly 

 marked than many denizens of the reef, though it is 

 only within safe shelters that the mad riot takes place. 



Fishes of the open ocean, mackerel, herring, flying Protective 

 fish, etc., are nearly all blue or green, with silvery ^""^ 

 sides, the blue, however, being mainly a matter of 

 luster, not of pigment, the color changing with the 

 light like burnished metal. To a bird watching from 

 above such forms look blue like the sea. To an 

 enemy from below they appear silvery like the sky. 

 Species that live in the channels between reef and 

 shore are dull green above like shoal water, white 

 underneath; those that burrow on the bottom in the 

 coral sand are mottled gray; those that creep along 



C 115 3 



