p 



A Freak Fish 149 



have I seen since then, both in reality and in their 

 counterfeit presentments, but none with such a wealth 

 of quaint decoration as this. He was about eighteen 

 inches long, with an angular head like a gurnard, and a 

 body shaped like a haddock. So that in his general 

 contour there was nothing particularly strange. But 

 his colour was bright green, at least that was the ground, 

 so to speak, of his scheme of decoration. Scattered 

 about his body were brilliant crimson spots, mostly 

 circular and about half-an-inch in diameter. From 

 each of these spots there sprouted a tassel of bright 

 blue upon a yellow stalk about one inch in length. All 

 his fins were also extensively fringed with blue filaments, 

 which kept up a perpetual fluttering, however still the 

 body might be. His tail was, for his body, enormous, 

 being quite as wide as his body was long and also fringed 

 profusely with blue. His eyes had no speculation in 

 them or decided colour ; in fact they had the appear- 

 ance of being boiled. And over each of them protruded 

 a yellow horn about three inches long, with a pendant 

 tassel of blue on the end of it, which dangled down at the 

 angle of a conspicuously large mouth. And on the 

 back of the creature rose a brilUant crimson dorsal fin 

 running the whole length of the animal, about two 

 inches high, and terminating in a long spike running 

 forward over his nose. This also had a blue tassel, 

 larger than any of the others, dangling from it. The 

 whole made up a tout ensemble that I think warrants 

 me in giving so full a description of him. 



Yet in spite of the extraordinary development, both 

 in shape and colour, the fish as a fish was not queer. 

 Prepared for cooking he would have excited no com- 

 ment. But that cannot be said of the extraordinary 

 creatures captured and described by the members 

 of the various expeditions that have been exploring 



