FISHES PHENOMENAL AND ECONOMICAL. 163 



three-quarters of the total length of the band it joins. Beneath this lowest band, 

 which is straight and divides the fish's side into two subequal moieties, there is 

 usually a small linear patch of similar olive green, and narrow irregular lines 

 of the same tint are produced from the eye to the end of the snout, and on the 

 cheeks. The tins are more or less golden yellow, suffused with olive green, this 

 latter tint being generally developed in regular striations on the membrane of the 

 spinous dorsal, while the tips and edge of the caudal tin are frequently almost 

 black. These details have been described at some length, on account, not only of 

 their not having previously been correctly chronicled, but with reference to a 

 singular phenomenon observed and recorded by the writer a few years since. 



A number of these Trumpeters were kept alive for a considerable time in 

 the sea-water tanks and ponds of the experimental fishery establishment inaugu- 

 rated by the writer at Battery Point, Hobart. While in the daytime the fish 

 were notable only for the colour pattern above described, it was observed on 

 visiting the tanks at night, with the light of a lantern, that the fish had under- 

 gone a very distinct metamorphosis. The longitudinal colour bands were still 

 conspicuous, but in addition to them, and as though belonging to a deeper 

 sub-stratum of the integument, there were now distinctly visible five broad equi- 

 distant transverse blackish bands extending from the back to a little below the 

 lowermost of the olive-green longitudinal stripes. It was observed at the same 

 time that examples of the Silver or Bastard Trumpeter, Latris Forsteri, which, while 

 of a different colour, is likewise longitudinally striped, exhibited at night similar 

 dark transverse band-like markings. Later on, a specimen of Latris hecateia, in one 

 of these fishery tanks, was attacked, apparently by a cat, or possibly a musk rat, 

 and so injured that it lost the sight of both its eyes, though in other respects it 

 recovered its health and appetite. The remarkable circumstance concerning this fish 

 now, however, was that, being blind, it habitually exhibited the dark transverse 

 markings that were only visible at night under normal conditions. It would 

 appear that in ordinary daylight the stimulus upon the optic nerves and correlated 

 system is such as to keep the pigment cells or chromatophores entering into the 

 composition of these transverse bands in such a state of contraction that they are 

 not visible. With the removal of the stimulating light or power of appreciating it, 

 the tension is relaxed, and the expanded chromatophores become visible. 



The existence of these supplementary colour-bands is of interest from another 

 point of view. A further investigation revealed their constant though latent 



