SEA-HORSES 249

arapaima is the Chiedde, comprising not only the
herring—that most useful of coast fishes—but the
sprat and the pilchard, otherwise the sardine (Clupea
pilchardus), and that biggest of bloaters, the tarpon
(Megalops thrissoides), as tall as its catcher and looking
taller when photographed five feet in front of him, as
has been done for the purpose of illustration in certain
magazines. Another group, not so far removed, in-
cludes the electric eel of Brazil (Gymnotus electricus) ;
and another (the Murenide) takes in the congers and
other eels, fresh-water and marine. With them we
end the long array of Physostomd.

The Lophobranchiz, our fifth assemblage, need
not detain us long. They consist chiefly of the pipe-
fishes and sea-horses. The flippocampus, or sea-
horse, is merely a bony pipe-fish, some six or eight
inches long at his best, with tufted gills and flattened
body, and: having his scales joined in ridges, with
their three angles raised into a spine. He is known
in twenty slightly differing forms, the commonest
being drevirostris. When alive, swimming upright
in his favourite position in the water, the general
resemblance of his head to that of a horse is very
marked. In dried cabinet specimens the resemblance
is still more striking. A common object is hippo-
campus in our public aquariums, and he is familiar to
all who have voyaged in the Mediterranean. With
the pectoral fins so curiously mimicking ears, and the
peculiarly knowing eyes, one of which is generally
higher than the other, Mr. and Mrs. Seahorse—the
latter distinguished by the possession of an anal fin—
are by no means unpopular, and are the cause of an