Handbook to the Fish House in the Gardens of the Zoological Society of London (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1860 edition. Excerpt: ...more or less tinted and variegated with bright colours, and some of them are strongly marked with spots or stripes. The localities frequented by these fish are usually rocky coasts, to which they resort in search of small crustaoea and certain kinds of shell-fish. The wrasses appear to be'hardy, and will survive in the aquarium under conditions fatal to many other kinds of sea-fish. The Dorse or Variable Cod (Morrhua callariwi). The Coalfish (Merlangus carbonarius). Both these members of the cod family are northern species. The Dorse, remarkable for the great variation in its colouring, is found abundantly in the Baltic, but is rarely met with in our own seas. The Coalfish is common on many parts of the coast, but increaes in numbers as we proceed northward. It is highly esteemed as an article of food, and has been kept with some success in large salt-water ponds, where it soon becomes tame, and attains a large size. The Three-bearded Rockling (MoteUa tricirrata).' The Fivebearded Rockling (M. quinquecirrata). These fish are frequenters of rocky coasts aud are generally distributed in all the suitable localities around our islands; they feed on minute animals of various kinds, and their habit is to remain for a long time almost motionless under shelter of a bit of seaweed or a projecting rock. All the rocklings possess fleshy barbules at the extremity of the jaws and these flexible appendages probably serve to attract the various minute animals which these fish devour. The Flounder (Platessa fiesus). Bloch's Topknot (Rhombus punctata). The Turbot (R. maximus). The Sole (Solca vulyatis). Few fishes are perhaps so little generally understood as those popularly known as ' Flatfish," although their appearance must be familiar to every...