WRASSES. 
13 
The colouring of the Striped Wrasse differs con- 
siderably according to the sex, more so than is usual 
among ffshes; but both male and female are among the 
most gorgeous of European fishes and are conspicuous 
even among the species of the wrasse family, distin- 
guished as these species are by their universal beauty 
and brilliancy of colour. 
The male is dark green, nearly black, with broad, 
curved, blue stripes on the head, and 5 irregular blue 
stripes along the body. The belly is flame-yellow, in- 
terspersed in the anterior part under the head with 
blue spots so dense that they sometimes run into each 
other. The fins flame-yellow with a narrow edge of 
blue. On the dorsal tin there is, in addition to this 
edge, a large patch of blue which extends over the 
greater part of its first half and is continued by a row 
of blue spots. The caudal and anal fins are marked 
with rows of blue spots, and the whole extremity of 
the ventral fins is blue. The colouring varies a little, 
as the extent of the dark and yellow tints, especially 
in the posterior part, is not always the same. In some 
instances the caudal fin is almost wholly blue spotted 
with yellow, in others, according to Valenciennes, the 
yellow colour spreads backwards along the dorsal sides. 
The situation of the blue markings is constant, but 
they may be more or less coalescent. The pectoral fins 
are generally dark green, but according to the figure 
given by Ascanius they may also be flame-yellow. 
The female is minium-red all over, with the same 
blue marks on the head as the male, but they are more 
widely dispersed. On the posterior part of the back 
there are 3 large, black spots," the first two of which 
are separated by a whitish patch, and situated at the 
base of the branched dorsal rays. These three spots 
are visible even in specimens which have long been kept 
in alcohol. The three vertical fins have narrow blue 
edges, and the beginning of the dorsal fin is always of 
a more or less pronounced shade of black, a slight trace 
of correspondence to the blue colouring of the male. 
Among the males there is a further difference in 
colour, still more marked than that Ave have already 
mentioned: the younger males display a more or less 
close resemblance to the females on account of their 
comparative lightness of colour, at any rate until they 
have attained a length of from 150 to 170 mm. — A male 
198 mm. in length, preserved in spirits, seems to have 
been very slightly dark with a very small blue patch 
on the dorsal fin. The blue stripes on the body appear 
only in the anterior part above the pectoral fins, and 
on the back are indistinct but unmistakable traces of 
the three black spots Avhich occur in the female. The 
caudal and ventral fins resemble those of older males. — 
It is also said that the wrasses are subject to periodical 
changes of colour depending on the season of the year, 
and that in winter their colouring is duller. 
In consequence of their remarkable difference in 
colour, both sexes Avere long described as distinct spe- 
cies, and Avere regarded as such by Valenciennes in 
1839, in spite of the fact that by the Fauna of Retzius 
(1800) his attention Avas called to the opinion current 
among the Noiwegian fishermen, first made known by 
Fabricius, that the, two species represented only different 
sexes of the same species. The opinion of Fabricius 
himself Avas not published before 1818, and does not 
seem to have attracted the attention of anyone until 
it Avas brought to light by Krgyer. Before this time 
Fries and Wright, in the first edition of «Scandinavian 
Fishes, » had given an independent and complete solution 
of the Avhole question. 
During his visit to Bohuslan Fries Avas enabled to 
examine several specimens of both these varieties, and 
in 1835 he first remarked that no females occurred of 
the blue variety, and no males of the red. Not being 
able to discover any difference in shape betAveen them, 
he assumed that they belonged to the same species. 
This assumption Avas completely verified by the inve- 
stigations made by v. Wright and him during a year’s 
stay at the same place, Avhen they Avere enabled to exa- 
mine a large number of specimens of both varieties. 
In the Avorks of several authors we may find de- 
scriptions of male specimens of Labrus carneus or tri- 
maculatus, Avhich Avas the ordinary name for the female. 
This error may have arisen, partly from the fact that 
the colour of the specimens described had been destroyed 
by the spirits in which they Avere preserved or in the pro- 
cess of drying, and partly from the similarity mentioned 
above as existing between the females and the young 
males. It is also not unlikely that males may sometimes 
occur in Avhich the dark colouring is never developed 
and which consequently always resemble the females. 
The fact that Ave have descriptions of blue females gives 
rise to the conjecture that in warmer climates the fe- 
° Day, Fish. G:t Brit., Irel., I. p. 258, mentions a female with only one of these spots; Couch, Fish. Brit. Isl., mentions (p. 37) 
several with four spots and gives a figure (Plate CXXXIII) of one of them. 
