FISHES PHENOMENAL AND ECONOMICAL. 185 



of this Chapter. No other part of the world, it may be asserted, produces so 

 varied and remarkable an assemblage of members of this group as are to be found 

 in Australian waters, and more especially within its southern or temperate limits. 

 In this association it may be mentioned that the little European Sea-horse, Hippo- 

 campus antiquorum, scarce in British seas but common in the Mediterranean, and 

 rarely exceeding a length of three inches, is represented in Tasmanian waters 

 by a form, Hippocampus abdominalis, fully four times that size. Such a species as 

 this would create a sensation at Brighton or other of the large public aquaria, 

 and with suitable precautions could be successfully transported to England from the 

 Antipodes. The colours of this Tasmanian Hippocampus vary considerably, ranging 

 through all the gradations of creamy white, with usually a pale yellow chest and 

 sparsely dark-spotted back, to examples in which a dark golden or more sombre brown 

 predominate. In this item of colour the Mediterranean species exhibits even greater 

 variability, the writer having had specimens in his possession, supplied to him 

 by Mr. G. Hoadley King, the Aquarium naturalist, of Great Portland Street, 

 London, in which some individuals were, while living, red, others pale yellow, or 

 white, or brown with many intermediate tints. Two of the smaller forms of 

 Australian Sea-horses or Hippocampi are included in the coloured plate previously 

 referred to. 



If the large Tasmanian Sea-horses are calculated to create a sensation at a public 

 aquarium, the addition thereto of living examples of their relatives the Australian 

 Sea-dragons, of the genus Phyllopteryx, might be expected to inaugurate a decided 

 boom in favour of these aquatic institutions. This generic group is most essentially 

 and peculiarly Australian, numbering three or four species, the two most remarkable 

 of which are illustrated in Chromo- Plate VI. One of these, Phyllopteryx foliatus, is 

 most abundant on the Tasmanian coast, and the second one, P. eques, is frequently 

 taken in their dredges by the oystermen of Port Lincoln, in South Australia. While 

 of somewhat smaller size and considerably less elaborate in contour and in the number 

 and dimensions of its membranous appendages, the Tasmanian species is much the 

 more brightly coloured. As shown in the illustration above quoted, its general ground 

 tint is a brilliant scarlet carmine, spotted on the sides of the body and head with 

 white. On the sides of the neck are seven or eight transverse stripes of violet or 

 cobalt blue, while the narrow ventral surface of both neck and abdomen is bright 

 yellow. The leaf-like appendages of both body and tail are deep crimson, with a yet 



darker linear outer border. Large examples measure as much as fourteen or 

 AA 



