It is a most gentle, graceful-looking fish, but as far as my experience goes, one that is impossible to tame, or rather, I should say, embolden. All my efforts to domesticate various specimens have proved unavailing; and in spite of the most earnest and kindly attention, they have generally pined away and died within a week after their introduction to the aquarium.
[From the illustration on Plate 12] the reader will have no difficulty in recognising the original, should he by chance meet with it hiding among the tangle, or beneath the stones by the sea-shore.
The spotted Blenny, Butter-Fish, or Gunnel-Fish, as it is variously termed, is found lurking under stones in the same places as the preceding. In the north of Scotland it is called 'cloachs,' and is used extensively as a bait for larger fish. When disturbed, it wriggles its body about in the muddy bottom of the rock-pool like an eel, for which, indeed, it is occasionally mistaken.
Its length varies from three to nine inches; the depth only half an inch; the sides very much compressed and extremely thin.
The dorsal fin consists of seventy-eight short spiny rays, and runs the length of the back almost to the tail. The most conspicuous feature in the Gunnel-Fish are the eleven round spots which occur at the top of the back, and reach the lower half of the dorsal fin; they are black, half encircled by white.
The tail is rounded, and of a yellow colour. The back and sides are of a deep olive; the belly whitish.
In its young state I have had this fish live in my aquarium for several months, but it never seemed to be happy or contented.
The Five Bearded Rockling is almost as great a favourite with the writer as the Smooth Blenny. It is a very pretty fish, and may be easily tamed. In the course of a week I trained one to feed out of my hand, and when I put my finger in the water the fish would rub against it with its head, just as a favourite cat frequently does against the leg of a person with whom it is very familiar; moreover, if I moved the intruding digit with a circular motion through the water, the Rockling would waltz round the tip with evident signs of pleasure.
This fish is often found in tide-pools, and may readily be identified by the prominent appendages attached to its head, to the presence of which, the Rockling owes its familiar appellation.