GREEN WRASS. 
31 
permanent green or red, as we believe according to the pre- 
dominancy of their acid or alkaline affinities. 
^ Bat there are species mentioned by foreign naturalists, which 
m life are said to be constantly marked with a picponderancy 
of living green; and as a fish similarly adorned is sometimes 
met with on our coast, observers have generally agreed to 
insider it a distinct species, with the name of the Green 
^ffiTder ved"f “ last-mentioned denomination 
being derived from some streaks of another colour that is seen 
upon It when of full size. But that the British Green Vi"s" 
IS truly a separate species is far from certain, and our placing 
It under a separate name from the last species is rather in 
_ efeience to the opinion of other writers than from our own 
ju gment. ^ That the situation to which they resort has much 
influence in producing the colour appears from the fact that 
those Wrasses which are found along that range of rocks on 
which the Eddystone lifts its light, and which consequently 
are several miles from land, are uniformly of a pale green, 
with some shades or lines of brown; but in other particulars, 
an especially of form, they are not to be distinguished from 
the common species. The younger fish are of the brighter 
fSrL T-f- ^ ^ figure of an example in 
ndition, of the natural size, as represented in the 
engraving, to William P. Cocks, Esq., of Fdmouth, in which 
harbour it was caught by angling from the rocks. In this 
example the fin rays enumerated were,— in the dorsal twenty 
firm and ten soft, anal three firm and eight soft, pectoral 
fourteen, ventral eight, of which three were firm, in the caudal 
fifteen rays. 
