116 THE SUCKER. 



PIPEFISHES. 



The Pipefishes are rather uninteresting tenants of 

 an Aquarium ; their fins are small and of little power, 

 hence their motions are ordinarily slow. They hang 

 about in all attitudes, of which the perpendicular, either 

 with the head upward or downward, — is a favourite one. 

 Ihavea very young specimen of the Great Pipe {8yn- 

 gnathus acus), a half grown Deep-nose {S. typhle), 

 and a rather large jiEquoreal fS. mquoreusj, about 

 15 inches long. This last is slow and unwieldy, 

 possessing no fin but the dorsal, while the former two 

 have tiny pectorals which are fluttered with a rapid 

 vibration, and a small fan-like caudal. All the species 

 flutter the delicate and filmy dorsal fin, at intervals, 

 though but little eff'ect can be produced by such an 

 organ in locomotion. 



THE TWO-SPOTTED SUCKER. 



The dredge frequently brings up specimens of a 

 pretty little fish adhering to the interior of old bivalve 

 shells, or to stones. It is the Two-spotted Sucker 

 CLepidogaster himaculatus J , which owes its generic 

 name to the circumstance of the ventral fins being 

 united into a concave disk; by the application of which 

 to any smooth surface, and the muscular withdrawal 

 of the central parts, producing a vacuum, the animal 

 adheres with considerable force ; exactly on the princi- 

 ple of those suckers that children make of a piece of 

 wetted leather at the end of a string. The little fish 

 is not more than two inches long, somewhat tadpole- 

 shaped, but prettily coloured of a pale crimson or 



