Another species, the Pellucid Goby, is remarkable in that its whole life's course is run in a single year. In June and July the eggs are laid; they are hatched in August; by the time winter has arrived the fish have reached maturity, and die off in the following July and August, so that in September only the fry are to be met with.
One of the strangest of all fishes is a member of the Goby Family. This is the Walking-fish, so called from its habit of spending most of its time on the mud-banks of rivers, or on the roots of trees growing in the neighbourhood. The late Surgeon-General Day, describing these fishes as he saw them along the side of the Burmese rivers, writes that at first sight they look like large tadpoles. When suddenly startled by something, away they go with a hop, skip, and a jump inland among the trees, or on the water like a flat stone or piece of slate sent skimming by a schoolboy. When climbing, the breast-fins are used, as if they were arms, to grasp the boughs. If placed in deep water, these fishes are speedily drowned!
The Blennies are fishes whose skins are soft, slimy, and quite scaleless, or at most covered with very tiny and degenerate scales. The general form of the body may be seen in the photograph below. They are shore-fishes, lurking about in the crevices of rocks, among seaweed, or under stones, and occurring generally along the coasts of temperate and tropical regions. The species known as the Sea-cat or Wolf-fish is, however, a deep-water form.
As a rule the eggs are deposited in hollow places between stones or rocks; but in the Butter-fish, or Gunnel, the eggs are adhesive, and the parents roll them into a ball by coiling their bodies round them. Furthermore, since the parents are frequently found, under natural conditions, coiled round these masses of spawn, it appears that they adopt this method of guarding their treasures. Some species bring forth their young alive.
The largest of the family is the Wolf-fish, whose jaws are armed with very powerful teeth, able to crush the hardest shells, such as those of the whelk. Sea-urchins and crabs are also eaten.
We pass on to a group comprising three families—the Barracudas, Sand-smelts, and Grey Mullets.
It should be mentioned that two very distinct fishes are known as Barracudas, one of which we have already described under the name of Snoek. The forms described here as barracudas are large, voracious fishes living in tropical and sub-tropical seas, and evincing a preference for the coast rather than the open sea. Attaining a length of 8 feet and a weight of 40 lbs., they are a source of danger to bathers. They are very frequently used as food, though in the West Indies such food is attended with some danger, as the flesh is often poisonous, from the fish having fed on smaller poisonous fishes.
Photo by Reinhold Thiele & Co.] [Chancery Lane, W.C.
BLENNY.