86 CHAPTERS ON THE NATURAL HISTORY 



support by absorption during the few days which constitute the 

 most critical period of its life." 



One of the chief protections sea-horses have against their 

 enemies is the way in which their coloration, as a rule, harmo- 

 nizes with their surroundings. This protection is still further en- 

 hanced by the very form and attitudes of the fish, and by the 

 wavy dorsal fin, and peculiar spines and tubercles which project 

 from its head and body. This protective mimicry is perhaps best 

 seen in the remarkable Australian sea-horses, which belong to 

 the genus Pliyllopteryx, an example of which is shown in Fig. 20 

 of this chapter. Here the loose, floating appendages of its body 

 have more the appearance of sprays of waving sea weed than they 

 have to anything which ought to belong to a fish. It is a very 

 singular sight to dip up a bucket of sea water containing a quan- 

 tity of sea weed of a certain species, and come to examine it ; for 

 at first no one would suspect the presence of such a thing as a 

 fish. But presently there floats away from the vegetal mass, 

 weakly swimming, a specimen of these truly extraordinary 

 lophobranchian creatures, which for all the world resembles a 

 thin bit of scraggly root, with the loose and undulating sea weed 

 clinging to it. This proves not to be the case, however, for it is 

 nothing more nor less than a Pliyllopteryx we have before us, 

 which, as Gtinther has very truly said, is "one of the most singu- 

 lar types of littoral fishes." 



It is thought in the case of the young of the pipefishes that 

 they re-enter the pouch of the parent when threatened with any 

 danger, but this has not, to my knowledge, been proved to obtain 

 with respect to the fry of Hippocampus. When the male sea- 

 horse once rids himself of his descendants, he ceases to entertain, 

 as a rule, any solicitude for them, and it must be thought that 

 the mother of these helpless little animals hardly knows, or ac- 

 tually does not know, what they even look like. Strange to say, 

 nevertheless, the male sea-horse has been known to vigorously 

 protect his brood of young shortly after their escape from his 

 brood-sac, and instances are upon record of his doing this in the 

 case of an attack upon them by the female, unconscious as the 

 latter probably was that they were her own. Had she suc- 

 ceeded in devouring them, however, she would have accom- 

 plished no more than do some other species of fishes which are 

 known to feed upon their own fry. 



Considering next certain representatives of the family Anguil- 



