Page:Natural History, Fishes.djvu/293

Rh them, these have obtained the name of Pipe-fishes. The body is covered with a cuirass of bony plates, generally of angular form, and so arranged that the body itself is many-sided. The gill-covers are large, but soldered down for the greatest part of their edge, leaving only a small orifice for the discharge of the water which has been respired. The gill-rays are formed in the usual manner, but the gills themselves, instead of taking the form of fringes, set in parallel series like comb-teeth, are disposed in small tufts set on the arches in pairs; a structure of which there is no other example in the whole Class.

The reproduction of the species in this Family is attended with some circumstances truly anomalous. The male acts as a sort of nurse for the rearing of the infant progeny, thus relieving his mate of the parental cares which usually devolve upon the female. For this end he has on the abdomen, extending for about two-thirds of its length, two soft flaps which fold together, and thus form a false belly or pouch. The spawn is deposited by the mother in this receptacle of her partner, where it becomes matured, and in which the young escape from the capsules. But even when active, and able to shift for themselves, the young resort, in cases of alarm, to the paternal pouch for shelter. Mr. Yarrell was assured by fishermen that if the young of the Great Pipe-fish (Syngnathus acus, .) were shaken out of the pouch into the water over the side of the boat, they did not swim away, but when the parent fish was held in the water in a favourable position, the young would again enter the receptacle. The analogy