2 COLOUES OF FISH. 



colour of its hiding-place may be mentioned ; various kinds, when 

 in the water, as may be observed at the Brighton and Crystal 

 Palace Aquariums, are not to be distinguished from the vegetable 

 matter in which they take shelter. It is almost impossible to 

 paint a fish so as accurately to transmit to canvas its exquisite 

 shape and glowing colours, because the moment it is taken 

 from its own element its form alters and its delicate hues 

 fade : and in dififerent localities fish have, like the chameleon, 

 different hues, so that the artist must have a quick eye and 

 a responding hand to catch the fleeting tints of the animal. 

 Nothing, for instance, can reveal more beautiful masses of 

 colour than the hauling in of a drift of herring-nets. As 

 breadth after breadth emerges from the water the magnificent 

 ensemble of the fish flashes ever-changing upon the eye — a 

 wondrous gleaming mixture of blue and gold, sUver and purple, 

 blended into one great burning glow, and lighted to brilliant 

 life by the soft rays of the newly-risen sun. But, alas for the 

 painter ! unless he can instantaneously fix the burnished mass 

 on his canvas, the light of its colour will fade, and its harmon- 

 ious beauty become dim, long before the boat can reach the 

 harbour. The brightly-coloured fish of the tropics are gorgeous, 

 as the plumage of tropical birds ; but as regards flavour and 

 food power, they cannot for a moment be compared with that 

 beautiful fish — the common herring, or pilchard, of our British 

 waters. 



If the breathing apparatus of a fish were to become dry the 

 animal would at once suffocate. When in the water a fish has 

 very little weight to support, as its specific gravity is about the 

 same as that of the element in which it lives, and the bodies of 

 these animals are so flexible as to aid them in their movements, 

 while the various fins assist either in balancing the body or in 

 aiding progress. The motion of a fish is excessively rapid ; it can 

 dash through the water with lightning-like velocity. Many of 

 our sea fish are curiously shaped, such as the hammer-headed 

 shark, the globe-fish, the monk-fish, the angel-fish, etc. ; then 

 we have the curious forms of the rays, the flounders, and of 

 some other " fancy fish ; " but all kinds are admirably adapted 

 to their mode of life and the place where they live — as, for in- 

 stance, in a cave where light has never penetrated fish have 

 been found without eyes ! Fresh-water fish do not vary much 

 in shape, most of them being very elegant. Fish are cold- 

 blooded, and nearly insensible to pain, then: blood being only 



