178 MARINE AND FRESHWATER FISHES 



red, others pale pink, bright or light yellow, and even almost 

 pure white, with many other interblending shades. Such 

 colours had apparently been assumed by the fish in keeping 

 with, and as a means of concealment among, the brilliant 

 vegetation and zoophytic growth indigenous to the locality 

 from whence they were derived. These tints in confine- 

 ment gradually disappeared, until the fish had assumed 

 the normal light brown or speckled hue by . which they 



FIG. 23. SEA-HORSE (Hippocampus antiquorum). 



are generally characterised. A somewhat interesting fact 

 was elicited by the writer while making some coloured 

 sketches of the individuals just referred to. Two examples 

 were at this time isolated in separate glass receptacles some 

 few yards apart, when unexpectedly a sharp little snapping 

 noise was heard at short and regular intervals to proceed 

 from one of the vases placed on a side table, and to which a 

 response in a like manner was almost immediately made from 



