350 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



fiyngnathus Mppocampus, Sea horse Pipefish, MITCHILL, Trans. Lit. & Phil. 



Soc. N. Y. I, 475, 1815. 

 Hippooampus neptagonus JORDAN & GILBERT, Bull. 16, U. S. Nat. Mus. 386, 



1883, not of RAFINESQUE. 



Body short and deep, much compressed, much shorter than 

 the. prehensile tail, which is three times as long as the head and 

 more than three times greatest depth of body; snout as long 

 as postorbital part of head, its depth two fifths of its length; 

 eye circular, two fifths as long as the snout; interorbital space 

 two thirds of diameter of eye; occiput with a five-pointed crest; 

 a sharp spine above the gill covers on each side, one above the 

 posterior part of the eye and one on each side of the throat; a 

 blunt spine between the nostrils; the edges of the bony plates 

 of body with the usual blunt spines. There are no cirri on the 

 individual here described, but the species is said to have them 

 sometimes. DeKay does not mention cirri in his account of the 

 fish. Dorsal fin on 3J rings; base of dorsal one half as long 

 as head; longest dorsal ray one half as long as snout. D. 19; 

 rings 12+32 to 36. Color light brown or dusky, without spots, 

 but sometimes with pale grayish blotches which are sharply 

 edged with paler and blackish. DeKay's specimens were light 

 brown, with iridescent opercles, the iris yellow. 



The sea horse is now known to occur on the New York and 

 New Jersey coasts in moderate numbers during the summer 

 months; its range extends from Cape Cod to Charleston. 

 Mearns states that, during the summers of 1895 and 1896, a 

 number of sea horses were taken by fishermen when netting 

 shrimp in the eelgrass bordering the salt marshes near Consook 

 island, at low tide. It has sometimes been found abundant in 

 the nets in Gravesend bay, but h'as not occurred in large num- 

 bers since 1895. In 1898 only a few individuals were taken in 

 Great South bay, and the same scarcity was observed by fisher- 

 men at Southampton L. I. 



In captivity it thrives best in balanced tanks, but its life is 

 short on account of parasitic attacks, which lead to swelling and 

 ankylosis of the jaws. Its food in the aquarium includes 

 U n c i o 1 a and shrimp eggs. The sea horse excites popular 

 interest on account of its singular shape, its prehensile tail, 



