1 140 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 



graphed. I have a series of nearly all the fishes of this region, and I commend 

 this method of individual tank§ for old and young fish and eggs, and the photo- 

 graphing of them at intervals, as a simple yet conclusive method of examina- 

 tion and study. 



From the side of the tank every motion of a fish could be observed, while 

 in an adjoining room were specimens of the same fish in alcohol or formalin for 

 study. Here I saw the swell shark and the California Port Jackson shark 

 deposit their eggs ; later I saw the young making their way out of the corkscrew 

 eggs, then had them photographed as they were hatched, the entire history of 

 the fish being observed and recorded. 



I paid particular attention to the protective resemblances. I arranged tanks 

 with colored bottoms and watched and timed the adaptation of color in sculpins 

 and the beautiful kelpfish. In the latter is found one of the most beautiful of 

 all fishes that depend upon protective resemblance. It not only imitates the 

 kelp perfectly in tone, shade, and color, but hangs in it, head down, imitating the 

 leaf in shape and position. I followed the fish from birth to the laying of eggs; 

 found that the female was nearly twice as large as the male, and I think I had 

 the first opportunity to notice the building of the nest, which I reported to the 

 American Naturalist. The male had glorious nuptial colors. I watched the 

 female carefully, and the moment she sank to the bottom, exhausted from an 

 effort of twining a silken egg cord about the weed, the male sprang ahead, poised 

 over the eggs, his body violently quivering as he showered over them a cloud 

 of spermatozoa. The following is an account I published in the American 

 Naturalist : 



One of the most interesting fishes found in the great kelp beds along the shores of 

 Southern California is the so-called kelpfish, Heterostichus rostrata Girard. In color it 

 closely resembles the seaweed in which it habitually lives. During the past year two 

 adult kelpfishes and a smaller fish of another kind occupied one of the tanks in the Santa 

 Catalina Island Aquarium. The larger kelpfish, a female, was about 9 inches in length; 

 the male measured about 5 inches. I was attracted to them by the savage attacks of 

 the male on a stranger, and investigation showed that he was in nuptial colors and was 

 attending the female. The offending fish was removed, giving the kelpfish the entire 

 tank. 



All the colors of the male kelpfish were highly accentuated and brilliant. What 

 had been white was now lavender and silver; the dark angles of the zigzag barring took 

 on darker tints and were emphasized by countless lines of lavender, yellow, blue, and 

 gold; patches of silver, old rose, lavender, and white appeared here and there the entire 

 length of the fish, making it a most gorgeous creature. The long vibrating dorsal fin 

 was erect, and the fish was unusually alert as if sensible of the importance of the situa- 

 tion and its responsibilities. 



In the tank were several small bunches of a deep maroon seaweed 4 or 5 inches 

 high; and as I watched the female, large and heavy with spawn, she approached the 

 weed and appeared to examine it, passing around it several times. Then I saw that 

 her ventral surface was pressed against the weed and that its branches were being 

 caught together by a viscid pure white cord having the diameter of a thick thread. It 



