2742 THE BONY FISHES AND GANOIDS 



it is attached. Moseley remarks that in shark fishing the suckers sometimes drop 

 off as the shark is hauled on board, and sometimes remain attached; and that when 

 a shark is hooked and struggling in the water, they may often be seen to shift 

 their position. He adds that as it is the back of the sucking fish that is applied 

 to the body by which it is transported, this "being always less exposed to light is 

 light colored, whereas the belly, which is constantly outermost and exposed, is of a 

 dark chocolate color. The familiar distribution of color existing in most other fish 

 is thus reversed. No doubt the object of this arrangement is to render the fish less 

 conspicuous on the brown back of the shark. Were its belly light colored, as usual, 

 the adherent fish would be visible for a great distance against the dark background. 

 The result is that when the fish is seen alive, it is difficult to persuade oneself at 

 first that the sucker is not on the animal's belly, and that the dark exposed surface 

 is not its back. The form of the fish, which has the back flattened and the belly 

 raised and rounded, strengthens the illusion. When the fish is preserved in spirits, 

 the color becomes of a uniform chocolate and this curious effect is lost. ,When one 

 of these fish, a foot ir* length, has its wet sucker applied to a table, and is allowed 

 time to lay hold, it adheres so tightly that it is impossible to pull it off by a fair 

 vertical strain." When they have lost their shark these fish often attach them- 

 selves to a ship, which they probably mistake for a large individual of that race. 

 It has been stated that certain races are in the habit of employing sucking fishes 

 for the capture of turtles. This curious mode of fishing is practiced by the natives 

 of Zanzibar, Cuba, and Torres Straits. 



STARGAZERS AND WEAVERS Family TRACHINID^E 



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According to the arrangement adopted by Dr. Giinther, the eighth family of the 

 group under consideration is taken to include not only the typical weavers, but 

 likewise the stargazers and several other more or less nearly allied types, these 

 being split up into five subfamilies. On the other hand, Day prefers to regard 

 some if not all of these subfamilies as the representatives of distinct families; but 

 in a work of the present nature it will be more convenient to treat the whole 

 of them together. In this wider sense the family is characterized by the more or 

 less elongated and narrow form of the body, which may be either naked or have 

 scales. A spinous dorsal, or a spinous portion of the dorsal, is generally distinct, 

 in which the spines are connected by membrane; there are no finlets; the caudal 

 (except in the tilefish) is not forked; the pelvic fins include a single spine and five 

 rays; and the gill openings are more or less wide. The number of verbtebrae in the 

 trunk is generally ten or more, and there are always more than fourteen in the tail. 

 As a rule, the members of this family agree with those of the preceding families of 

 the group in the absence of a bony stay connecting the preopercular bone with the 

 orbit, but in the genus Pseudochromis and its allies such a connection exists. 

 Carnivorous in their habits, the majority of these fishes are of small size, with but 

 feeble swimming powers, and living on the bottom of shallow seas. The tilefish 

 and its allies are, however, large deep-water forms: and the genus Bathy draco has 



