18 Animal Life 
“Crooners” and “Grunters.” It may be reasonably assumed that these vocal sounds 
vary in their timbre and inflections to such an extent as to be clearly comprehensible 
to their fellows and to constitute a piscine language. 
That certain fish can and do practically maintain intercommunication with thew 
fellows through the medium of vocal sounds has been distinctly ascertained by the 
writer. This fact was established im connection with members of that quaint group 
Which includes the Sea Horses, Sea Dragons, and Pipe-Fish. Some few years since 
the writer received a small consignment of Sea Horses from the Mediterranean that 
were remarkable for their exceptionally brilliant colours. Some of these were bright 
red, some pink, some yellow, and some nearly white, with many intermediate tints. 
In order to make coloured sketches of these interesting arrivals, examples were isolated 
in glass jars and brought to the table to “sit” for thei portraits. While the work 
was well in progress a sharp, though not very powerful, little snapping noise was 
From a Photograph by J. Turner-Turner reproduced in ‘The Giant Fish of Florida” (Pearson) 
WHIP RAY. 
Jumping out of the sea to shake off suckers which fasten themselves on to the fish. 
heard at short and even intervals to proceed from the larger vase on a side table 
that contained the greater number of the specimens, and these sounds were at once 
responded to in a similar manner from the receptacle close at hand. Surprise and 
admiration were intense on discovering that the snappings proceeded from the mouths 
of the puny and presumably dumb little fish. A close inspection elicited the fact that 
the sound was produced by consecutive muscular contractions and sudden expansions 
of the fishes’ lower jaw. The phenomenon, and its cause once recognised, was verified 
by repetitions on several subsequent occasions. 
The Sea Horse, in common with the Gurnard, presents multiple points of interest, 
and on this occasion in a widely divergent direction. It is in association with the Sea 
Horse and its allies that we meet with the singular phenomenon of the female fish 
imposing the care of the eggs and infant brood upon her poor hen-pecked partner. 
There are many species, including the familiar Sticklebacks, im which the male fish 
