Page:Natural History, Fishes.djvu/295

Rh wanting; and the pectorals, when present, are very minute.

The body in this singular genus is compressed or flattened laterally, and is much deeper than the tail; the muzzle is narrow and tubular, with the mouth opening at the point nearly horizontally. The profile is angular; there is one small dorsal, no caudal, and no ventrals; small pectorals, and a minute anal in the male only. The margins of the angular plates in which the body is encased are raised in ridges, and the angles form spines. The slender tail is prehensile, and enables the little fish to hold on, or to climb by the stalks of marine plants. Specimens are often dried as curiosities, and the head and fore-parts assuming somewhat of the figure of those of a miniature horse, they are commonly called Sea-horses.

A little species, the Short-nosed Sea-horse (Hippocampus brevirostris, .), is found, but in no abundance, on the shores of the British Islands. It is about five inches in length, of a pale ashy hue, with a changeable iridescence of flitting hues playing over its body, mingled with variable shades of blue: the eyes are pale yellow.

The food of this, as of kindred species, is believed to consist of minute animals and spawn, which are supposed to be drawn up the tubular mouth, by the dilatation of the throat, on the same principle that water rushes up a syringe, when a vacuum is formed by a retraction of the