146 Habits Pipe-fish ; Sea-Horse. 



or move about body vertical, head either up or down, and their 

 tail is prehensile, or grasps the reeds and weeds, while the body 

 sways to and fro. Thus, on the south coast of Kent, they are 

 charged with feloniously visiting the lobster pots, and are 

 brought up swung fast by their tails to the bars. We have 

 found the Greater and Broad-nosed species carrying ova during 

 summer and autumn, though seldom fortunate in seeing young 

 in the pouch. Young fish, like darning needles, 2| to 5 

 inches, are plentiful in late autumn, winter and spring. These 

 keep company with the whitebait and other small fish, par- 

 ticularly sojourning in weedy ground. The maximum length 

 of S. acus obtained by us has been 17| inches (in Blackwater 

 16 inches, Fitch), but 15 inches down to a foot are frequent. 

 Those examined appear to have fed on minute crustaceans 

 (Copepods). 



There is still another exceptional form in the family, viz., 

 (5) The SEA-HORSE or HIPPOCAMPUS (H. antiquorum), which must 

 be more frequent on the Essex coast than hitherto supposed. 

 Dr. Bree records two as very rare fish at Brightlingsea, Nov., 

 1866, while Dr. Laver has not Fig. 16. 



met with them. A good sized 

 one was taken by J. Cotgrove 

 off the Shoebury sands in his 

 shrimp-trawl, 1876. His wife 

 was offered 10s. for it, but it still 

 remains an ornament in the 

 parlour. A small one of size 

 represented in Fig. 16 was got 

 in the drag-net by A. Bundock, 

 May, 1900. He kept it alive in SEA HORSE. 



a dish of sea water for some (Hippocampus antiqucrum.) 

 days, afterwards presenting it to us. Some twenty years ago 

 two Leigh men (J. Little and J. Tyrrel) had an order from 

 London to procure specimens. So when shrimping at Harwich 

 during the summer season they procured altogether five or six 



