Page:Natural History, Fishes.djvu/210

196 red hue. The eyes are large and conspicuous; the irides are silvery, streaked with red, and the pupils are black. The scales are hard and rough, granulated on the surface and beautifully ciliated, or cut into very delicate filaments on the hinder edge.

Little is known of the habits of this singular little fish. According to Risso, it prefers a muddy bottom in moderately deep water, spawning in spring. The young are seen near the shore of the Mediterranean in autumn, shining with the silvery gleam already alluded to, they not having yet acquired the rich hue of the adult state: they are not numerous, and do not wander far from the locality in which they are bred. We have, however, seen the Snipe-fish under circumstances which seem to imply very different habits from these. In a recent voyage to Jamaica, when about one hundred and sixty miles south west of Madeira, a little Centriscus was taken alive in a bucket of water drawn from alongside; and on the same day a Bonito (Thynnus pelamys) was caught, the stomach of which was filled with these Snipe-fishes. The Bonito is well-known to be a surface-swimming fish; and his morning meal having been exclusively made of the Centrisci, combines with the specimen taken in a bucket, to prove that the latter also is a surface species, while the locality shows it to be pelagic. As all the individuals were alike in size, and none exceeded two inches and a half in length, it may have been a species distinct from the C. scolopax of the Mediterranean.

The food of the Snipe-fish is not recorded by naturalists: Mr. Yarrell, however, speaking conjecturally, says, "it probably consists of minute