Part 15

WEEVER.

In spite of the good man’s earnest warnings to have nothing to do with so venomous a creature, we must contrive to take possession of it for study at home; and by the aid of our hand-net we find no difficulty in lifting it and transferring it, an unwilling guest, to a glass jar of sea-water. We now discern it more fully and distinctly; though it manifests its indignation at this tyrannical suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, by flouncing around the glass, and scattering the water hither and thither. This wrath, however, gradually subsides, and our captive philosophically makes up his mind to his fate.

It is the Lesser Weever; a name corrupted from the French, who call it Vive, from the length of time which the fish will live out of its native element. It also bears the names of sting-fish, sting-bull, and sea-cat, among English fishermen; on the shores of the Mediterranean it bears the title of spider, and the ancient Romans called it sea-dragon. The specific names,--vipera and draco, viper and dragon--which are appropriated to this species and another which is nearly allied to it, make up an extensive list of aliases, all combining to give this pretty little fish a thoroughly bad reputation. All these titles point to a habit and a power possessed by it of inflicting severe wounds, which without doubt are of a highly inflammatory character, and are slow and difficult to cure. These are effected by the rays of the first dorsal fin, which, as we have just seen, are erected and spread in a way which indicates a perfect consciousness of their power, and by certain spines, long and acute, set on the gill-covers, one on each, pointing backward. These all are of needle-like sharpness, and are wielded most effectively. Yarrell tells us that if trod upon, or only touched, while on the watch, nearly buried in the sand at the bottom of the water, it strikes with force either upwards or sideways; and Pennant says that he had seen it direct its blows with as much judgment as a fighting cock. Fishermen hold it in great dread; and the name of sting-bull is said to be due to its power of piercing even the proverbial thickness of a bull’s hide.

PLATE 13.

P. H. GOSSE, del. LEIGHTON, BROS.

FIFTEEN-SPINED STICKLEBACK. LESSER WEEVER. ]

VENOM OF ITS SPINES.

Cuvier considers the imputation of venom to the wounds made by the Weever as a popular error. He says, “They cannot inject into the wounds they inflict with their spines any poisonous substance, properly so called; but, as these spines are very strong and sharp-pointed, and can no doubt pierce the flesh to a considerable depth, these wounds, like all others of the same description, may produce dangerous consequences if care is not taken to enlarge them, and to allow the blood to flow; this perhaps, is the most certain, as the simplest remedy, and much preferable to the boasted applications of the ancients.”

This is oracular; but it does not appear that the decision of the great French anatomist was grounded on any definite experiments. Mr. Couch, on the other hand, has known three men wounded successively in the hand by the same fish (the Greater Weever), and the consequences have been felt in a few minutes as high as the shoulder. It is certain that the spinous bristles of certain caterpillars have the power of inflicting envenomed wounds, which in some cases even prove fatal, notwithstanding the minuteness of the organs, and evidence appears very strong for the injection of some highly irritant poison by means of these prickles of the Weevers.

The flesh of these fishes is esteemed for the table; but such is the general apprehension of danger attendant upon touching them, heightened also by their great tenacity of life, that the fishermen usually cut off the first dorsal and the gill-spines as soon as they capture them; while in Spain and France these precautions are enforced by legal penalties, on such fishes being exposed in the market without having been disarmed.

According to Mr. Couch smart friction of the wounded part with olive-oil is the most effectual remedy; and this fact again suggests analogy of the evil with the effects produced by the bites of venomous snakes and the stings of insects.

Our little fish is not uncomely in its form or the distribution of its sober colours. The upper parts are light olive, with lines of ill-defined reddish spots running lengthwise; the sides are silver-grey, tenderly washed with blue; the under parts pearly white: the cheeks and operculum are richly adorned with pearly reflections; these parts are destitute of scales, which is the chief distinction between this species and the Greater Weever, after the size; this species rarely exceeding five or six inches in length, whereas its congener attains double those dimensions, and even more.

ITS HABITS.

In the tank, it is not particularly interesting; it grovels on the bottom among the pebbles, and will cover its body with the sediment so far as it is able; where it lies for hours, watching upward. Doubtless this is its habitual mode of obtaining its food; lying motionless in wait, nearly concealed, the eyes and the mouth both opening upwards, so that the former can observe, and the latter seize, any vagrant crustacean, or annelid, or young fish-fry that unsuspectingly swims within reach. Its motions when its energies are aroused are rapid, sudden, and forcible; and it probably rarely misses its victim when it makes its snap; while the multitude of minute creatures that roam continually over every part of the sea-bottom give no lack of opportunities for the exercise of its instincts. He fares sumptuously, no doubt.

Here is in the drag a specimen of an interesting tribe of fishes. It is the young of the common Thornback, a little thing about five inches in width, and in its infantile grace and beauty much more attractive than the older ones we are accustomed to see on the fishmonger’s table. It flaps and flutters in impatience at being dragged out of its element, and exposed to ungenial air: we will quiet its anxiety by lifting it into yonder shallow rock-pool. Now watch it. How easily and gracefully it glides around its new abode, moving along by an undulation of the edges of the broad pectoral fins, a movement which Yarrell describes as something between flying and swimming. Now it lies still on the sand-floor of the pool, motionless, save that the two oval orifices just behind the eyes are constantly opening and closing, by the drawing across each or back, of a film which exactly resembles an eyelid, and which on examination with a lens we see to be edged with a delicate fringe. The action is so closely like the winking of an eye, that an observer seeing the fish for the first time might readily suppose the orifices to be the organs of vision. They are, however, outlets of the gills, called spiracles; the ordinary gill-apertures are five on each side, placed semi-circularly on the inferior surface of the body, as you see when I turn the fish on its back, a demonstration which it resents and resists with all its might: these upper orifices communicate with the gill-chambers by canals, and you may see the water now and then strongly driven out of them.

YOUNG SKATE.

The eyes are these knobs just in front of the spiracles; or rather these are the orbits, the pupil looking sideways and somewhat downward. If you use the lens again, you perceive that there is a singular protection to the pupil in the form of a fan-like array of about a dozen stiff points arching over it.

The general form of the fish is beautifully symmetrical; it is nearly a rhomboid, with the two front sides slightly excavated, and the two posterior sides convex. At the point where these latter unite, there are two smaller fins (the ventrals), and the body is continued very slender to a considerable length, tapering to a point, near which two upright dorsals are placed. The pectorals, as in all this tribe, are of enormous size, forming the lateral angles of the rhomboid, and extending in front of the head to the tip of the snout.

The colours are beautiful, but not at all gaudy. A warm olive brown is the ground hue, on which numerous roundish black spots, with softly blending outlines, are set in symmetrical patterns, and there are also rows of pale spots. This combination of hues is elegant. The slender prolongation of the body is edged with a narrow stripe of pure white. The colour of the whole under surface is richly iridescent, like mother-of-pearl.

At present we see only a few of the curved spines appearing, chiefly in the vicinity of the eyes, which in the adult become so conspicuous and remarkable; being something like strong rose-spines, each set on an oval button of bone, imbedded in the skin.

STICKLEBACK.

Another draught presents us with the Fifteen-spined Stickleback, a little fish, remarkable for its form, but much more so for its habits. It is ordinarily about five or six inches in length, very slender and lithe, from which circumstance, combined with a protrusion of the jaws, which gives it a sinister expression, it is on some parts of the coast called the Sea-Adder. The lower jaw projects considerably beyond the upper, which indicates that the fish habitually takes its food from a point above the level of its own body. The dorsal and anal fins are high and short, so as to form, when erected, nearly equal-sided triangles; but the former is preceded by fifteen minute sharp erectile spines, each of which has its own little membrane, and all together represent the spinous portion of the dorsal fin in such fishes as have but one, as the Blennies, or the first dorsal in such as have two, as the Weevers. The caudal is narrowly lozenge-formed, as ordinarily carried, but becomes fan-like when expanded. The colours are deep sepia, or olive-brown, cast into streaks and irregular clouds, on the sides, where they are interrupted by white, and by a rich golden yellow, that extends over the inferior surface: the dorsal and anal fins are white, each crossed by a broad conspicuous band of brown; the eyes have golden irides.

We frequently see this attractive little fish hovering about the long tufts of wrack and tangle that hang from perpendicular rocks, and from the quays and wharves of our harbours. It diligently hunts about for its minute crustacean prey, in picking off which it assumes all varieties of position “between the horizontal and perpendicular, with the head downward or upward,” thrusting its projecting snout into the tufted weed, and snatching its morsel with a sudden jerk.

It is, however, in its domestic relations that this little fish presents itself in the most interesting aspect. It was known ages ago to Aristotle, that some fishes are in the habit of forming nests, in which they deposit their eggs, and bring up their young with a parental care not inferior to that of birds. Until lately, however, this fact was supposed to be fabulous; and fishes were believed by the greatest masters of modern zoology to be utterly destitute of the parental instinct. Recent research has in this, as in so many instances, proved the exactitude of the old Stagyrite’s knowledge, and we now know that several fishes of different families nidificate. The Sticklebacks, most of which inhabit in common our marine and fresh waters, are remarkable for the manifestation of this faculty, as was first shown by Mr. Crookenden, of Lewisham, in 1834, and as has since been proved, with many interesting details, by Mr. A. Hancock and Mr. Warington. Our Sea-Adder, which is exclusively marine, was first ascertained to be a nest-builder by the late Dr. George Johnston, who mentioned the fact in the “Transactions of the Berwickshire Naturalists’ Club” in 1839. But the most interesting account is that of Mr. R. Q. Couch, who noticed the facts on the coast of Cornwall, and thus records them in a paper read before the Royal Institution of that county:--

ITS NEST.

“During the summers of 1842 and 1843, while searching for the naked mollusks of the county, I occasionally discovered portions of sea-weed and the common coralline (Corallina officinalis) hanging from the rocks in pear-shaped masses, variously intermingled with each other. On one occasion, having observed that the mass was very curiously bound together by a slender, silken-looking thread, it was torn open, and the centre was found to be occupied by a mass of transparent, amber-coloured ova, each being about the tenth of an inch in diameter. Though examined on the spot with a lens, nothing could be discovered to indicate their character. They were, however, kept in a basin, and daily supplied with sea-water, and eventually proved to be the young of some fish. The nest varies a great deal in size, but rarely exceeds six inches in length, or four inches in breadth. It is pear-shaped, and composed of sea-weed or the common coralline as they hang suspended from the rock. They are brought together, without being detached from their places of growth, by a delicate opaque white thread. This thread is highly elastic, and very much resembles silk, both in appearance and texture: this is brought round the plants, and tightly binds them together, plant after plant, till the ova, which are deposited early, are completely hidden from view. This silk-like thread is passed in all directions through and around the mass, in a very complicated manner. At first the thread is semi-fluid, but by exposure it solidifies; and hence contracts and binds the substance forming the nest so closely together that it is able to withstand the violence of the sea, and may be thrown carelessly about without derangement. In the centre are deposited the ova, very similar to the masses of frog-spawn in ditches.

“Some of these nests are formed in pools, and are consequently always in water: others are frequently to be found between tide-marks, in situations where they hang dry for several hours in the day; but whether in the water or liable to hang dry, they are always carefully watched by the adult animal. On one occasion I repeatedly visited one every day for three weeks, and invariably found it guarded. The old fish would examine it on all sides, and then retire for a short time, but soon returned to renew the examination. On several occasions I laid the eggs bare, by removing a portion of the nest; but when this was discovered, great exertions were made to re-cover them. By the mouth of the fish the edges of the opening were again drawn together, and other portions torn from their attachments and brought over the orifice, till the ova were again hid from view. And as great force was sometimes necessary to effect this, the fish would thrust its snout into the nest as far as the eyes, and then jerk backwards till the object was effected. While thus engaged it would suffer itself to be taken by the hand, but repelled any attack made on the nest, and quitted not its post so long as I remained; and to those nests that were left dry between tide-marks, the guardian fish always returned with the returning tide, nor did they quit the post to any great distance till again carried away by the receding tide.”

It is worthy of note that the newly-hatched young from these nests were so unlike the full-grown Stickleback, and so like the common smooth Blenny, that Mr. Couch concluded that there had been some error in his observation, and that the nest truly belonged to the latter fish. Further research, however, proved that the Stickleback was indeed the parent; and the transition from the infantile Blenny-like outline of the face, high, bluff, and almost perpendicular, to the true Stickleback outline, long, slender, pointed, with the far-projecting lower jaw, is something remarkable.