STRAIGHT-NOSED PIPEFISH. 
it is fairly common. It occurs in the Mediterranean off 
Nice, according to Moreau, and on the coast of Algiers, 
according to Guici-ienot and Dumeril. According to 
Canestrini it lives round all the coasts of Italy and is 
common in the Adriatic — assuming that these Medi- 
terranean fishes are really identical in species with our 
Straight-nosed Pipe-fish". Like the rest of our Pipe- 
fishes this species is unknown in the western region of 
the Atlantic. 
The most important contributions to our knowledge 
of the habits and life of this species have been made by 
Ekstrom and Fries. As it glides through the grass- 
wrack or algte with its serpentine or Eel-like movements, 
it shows greater litheness and also greater timidity than 
the Deep-nosed Pipefish, but possesses the same pro- 
tective likeness to a stalk of seaweed. From its long, 
terete, tapering, highly flexible, and finless tail, writes 
Fries, it derives little, if any, assistance in its progress 
through the water. This organ is generally kept still, 
as the fish quietly swims along, and is to be regarded 
rather as a rudder than an oar. When the Deep-nosed 
Pipefish is stationary or at rest, it sinks, stretched at 
full length, to the bottom, and lies on the belly with 
tail extended. The Straight-nosed Pipefish, on the other 
hand, coils its flexible tail with great skill round the 
objects near at hand, and by the help of this organ 
preserves an upright position in the water. It may be 
seen continually attaching itself in this way, if it can 
find anything round which to twine; and when it fails 
in this, but has several companions in the same vessel, 
one may often see them twist their tails together and 
form groups, not unlike tufts of grass-wrack, which 
remind us in a manner of the old figures we see of 
so-called “Ratzen-Konige.” 
The most striking resemblance of the Straight- 
nosed Pipefish, however, is its similarity to Chorda 
filum , to which it is often found attached, in those 
localities where this seaweed floats about at the surface. 
Like the rest of the Pipefishes this species lives on mi- 
nute marine animals of various kinds, worms, crustaceans, 
and mollusks, of a size suitable for its tiny mouth. 
“Towards the end of April,” writes Ekstrom from 
the island belt of Morko, “the females desert the shore 
and the shallows to join the males in deep water and 
to perform the operation of spawning. The eggs, which 
are fairly large in comparison with the fish, about 1 
685 
mm. in diameter, are attached to the surface of the 
belly from the head to the vent in 2, 3, or 4 rows, not 
exactly opposite each other, but so to speak, decussating. 
They are somewhat depressed in the skin, united by or 
rather packed in tough mucus, and coated with a mem- 
brane so extremely fine that it can scarcely be detected 
and cannot bear the least touch without breaking. When 
this membrane is removed, and the eggs are loosened 
from the belly, they hang together like the beads of a 
necklace. As soon as the fish is dead, the roe falls 
from the body, accompanied, however, by the said layer 
of mucus in which the roe-strings have been imbedded. 
The eggs seem as though they might easily be detached 
from the almost smooth skin of the belly; but they 
have a triple fastening, first to the skin, by means of 
the glutinous mucus, then to each other, by the union 
of the poles, and finally, also to each other, by means of 
the said membrane. The laying of the eggs begins at 
the end of May, but is not simultaneous in all the spe- 
cimens, being considerably protracted: I have seen males 
with eggs even on the 11th of August. When the eggs 
are deposited, they are golden yellow in colour; but they 
gradually fade. At the middle of July most of them 
are white, with a yellow spot on the part of the surface 
most remote from the body of the male. In some cases 
the yelloAv spot is already furnished with two extre- 
mely fine, black dots, the first signs of the embryo 
with its eyes. We can thus state with certainty that 
the spawning-season, which begins during the first, 
days of May, lasts throughout this month and also 
during June and July. — Neither before May nor after 
September have I seen a male with roe.” 
i 
The new-hatched embryos are about 9 mm. long, 
according to Lilljeborg, with the snout turned up like a 
pug’s, the eyes and the postorbital part of the head about 
equally long, the entire length of the head about ’/g of 
that of the body, the vent situated distinctly in front 
of the middle of the body (at a distance from the tip 
of the snout equal to about 44 % of the length of the 
body), and the sides of the trunk furnished with a num- 
ber of prominent protuberances. The embryonic vertical 
fin runs along the dorsal edge, back from the middle of 
the trunk, round the tip of the tail, and along the 
ventral edge forward to the remainder of the vitelline 
mass, but with a sharp break at the vent. The larval 
pectoral fins are comparatively large. All these fins are 
Cf. notes b and t’ on the preceding page. 
