OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 177 



vibrating in rhythmical order from before backwards, con- 

 vert this organ into an efficient screw-propeller, by the 

 aid of which these fishes progress through the water in a 

 singularly beautiful manner, the body during such loco- 

 motion usually assuming a vertical position. A similar 

 mode of locomotion in which, however, the anal fin likewise 

 takes a part, has been recorded, [by the writer] of the 

 John Dory and Boar-fish. The Syngnathida are further 

 remarkable for the phenomena attending the process of 

 reproduction. The eggs deposited by the female are not, 

 as with the majority of fish species, left to the mercy of the 

 waves, but are consigned to the care of the male, who 

 receives them into a pouch-like excavation of the ventral 

 surface of his body, and there nurses them until the young 

 are hatched. It was formerly, but erroneously, supposed 

 that, after the manner of the kangaroo, the young fish 

 retreated for protection to the parental pouch on the 

 approach of any disturbing influence. Of the Sea-Horses, 

 or Hippocampi, but one species is rarely taken on the British 

 coast, this being the Short-nosed variety (Hippocampus 

 antiquorum), No. 189. It is a small form, not exceeding 

 two or three inches in length, having a head and shoulders 

 grotesquely resembling the conventional type of a horse 

 that represents the knight on a chess-board, the body thence 

 tapering away into a sub-cylindrical, highly flexible ap- 

 pendage, wherewith the little animal can attach itself to 

 sea-weeds and other submarine objects, in much the same 

 fashion that a New World monkey utilises its prehensile 

 tail. In the spring of the year 1875, some very extra- 

 ordinary coloured specimens of this singular little fish, 

 obtained from the Mediterranean, were supplied to the 

 writer at the Manchester Aquarium by Mr. G. H. King, of 

 165 Great Portland Street. Some of these were bright 



VOL. I. II. N 



