84 CHAPTERS OX THE NATURAL HISTORY 



Hippocampus ingens, our Californian species, is said to reach a 

 length of nearly a foot, and the form of the body is rather slen- 

 der. It is of a darker brown than heptagonus, being mottled with 

 a still darker shade, and spotted over with white. 



Owing to the imperishable nature of the external body armor 

 of a sea horse, many specimens of these fishes float ashore, and in 

 the curiosity shops there is no trouble in securing dried speci- 

 mens. 



Here we may incidentally remark that, although the open seas 

 (if the warm regions of the globe are the places where sea-horses 

 are found in the greatest abundance, they are frequently carried 

 by ocean currents to great distances. 



In studying a living specimen of the common sea-horse in an 

 aquarium we note that it moves about in nearly a vertical atti- 



Fig. 20. Phyllopteryx eques. 



By the Author after Giinther, and reduced. 



tude, and that with no great powers of locomotion. Its fins are 

 kept in a state of rapid vibratory action, and it is due to this lack 

 of inherent propulsive power that the fish is unable to withstand 

 the various forces of its element which are brought to bear upon 

 it, such as the ocean currents, and the action of the wind and the 

 waves. By means of its prehensile tail it instinctively clings to 

 sprays of seaweed, bits of broken shells, or anything of a similar 

 nature which may happen to occur in its way. 



Their peculiar mode of reproduction especially attracts atten- 

 tion to these fishes, "a trait so strange," as Lockwood has said, 

 " as to suggest the seemingly abnormal habits of the marsupials 

 — the opossum and the kangaroo — although the eccentricity of 

 the fish is far greater than that of the land marsupial; for, in the 



