Date: Sunday f 20, 2012
Rainbow Wrass Sea Fish
So far as is known this very pretty fish has only occurred in a single instance in England, which was in Mount's Bay, in the county of Cornwall, which district may therefore be regarded as the furthest extent of its range northward. It appears to have been caught by the merest accident, in the year 1802, and fortunately was obtained for the use of Mr. Donovan, who has given a beautiful likeness of it. But its history is to be learnt from the Mediterranean, where, in some districts, it is common, and where from ancient times some strange stories are told of its habits.
Oppian relates in verse what Elian repeats in prose. The last-named writer says that this fish lives in rocky places, and has its mouth poisonous, in such a manner that whoever tastes it is rendered unable to swallow. When fishermen have caught a Prawn, ( Squilla,) the middle portion of which has been devoured by a Julis, they sometimes eat it, but the consequence is that they experience severe pains in the bowels.
Swimmers and divers are much molested by this fish, in the same manner as flesh flies assail and bite them, and Oppian compares the effect to the sting of a nettle. These divers are compelled to drive the fishes away, to avoid being tormented with their bite, and so persevering is the annoyance, that the men are obliged for the time to give up following their occupations.
However foreign to truth this account, and especially the first portion of it, may appear to us, we should call to mind, in vindication of the writer, that he reports no more than the current opinion of his day, and that the particulars themselves were in close connection with the theories then predominant. It was long held as a principle in natural philosophy, that the sea contained something in every instance that bore an analogy to what was in the sky above, or on the land, and the attention of the philosopher was directed to the discovery of such objects as were thus believed to carry out these corres pondences of nature.
Many figures, with a little violence done to the likeness, are in this light handed down to us by writers of the middle ages, who had not yet escaped from the trammels thrown around them by the ancients, and it was with these impressions that they imposed a name upon a fish because they supposed it to be endued with some of the ill qualities which belonged to an insect with which they were acquainted.
The Creeping Julus was said to convey a poisonous bite, and that the fish Julis will annoy and bite we have the authority of no less an observer than Rondeletius, who describes what happened to himself, as well as on another occasion to a friend. When on one occasion he went to bathe near Antipolis, he saw several of these small fishes hasting towards him, and they attacked with their bites not only his legs, but the hard portions of his heels, and a similar circumstance was related to him by some gentlemen, as happening to them near Nice.
No injurious effect followed to this eminent naturalist, but it is highly probable that the terror which would arise to an ordinary person from the prospect of danger, would confirm the impression that the danger itself was not wholly imaginary. There is reason to believe that these fish are usually in com panies. Their food and season of spawning are for the most part the same as in other kinds of Wrasses, but they are little regarded as food, those which keep in the deeper water being considered the best.
The usual size of the Rainbow "Wrass is in length from four to six or seven inches, the shape round and slender, so that Willoughby, from whom much of our description is derived, compares it to a Goby or Blenny. The mouth small, pointed, lips fleshy, teeth in one row, those in front larger and longer, especially a pair in the upper jaw.
Eyes small Head without scales, body covered with them, lateral line bent angularly opposite the termination of the dorsal fin. The dorsal fin high at the beginning, the first rays close to the head, more slender in its progress, reaching near the tail, having twenty- one rays, of which nine are firm, anal fin two firm and twelve soft rays, pectoral fourteen, ventral six, of which one is firm, tail round, twelve rays.
The colour is subject to some variation, but is always beautiful, and the males are said to excel the females in this respect. Along the back it is dark, (Risso says bluish green,) the belly blue or whitish. From the snout a variously-coloured line runs through the eyes to the middle of the sides, that portion which is on the cheeks saffron coloured, passing into black, and in its further progress blue.
Along the side from the gill-covers to the tail a wide line, with an irregular border of a light blue, and parallel to it below, a line of bright yellow. Eyes red or yellow. Dorsal fin with a band of yellow near the back, followed above by red, the upper border blue, on its front a distinct pink mark, which extends to the three first rays, and above this a black spot, including the second and third ray tail yellow with a cast of red, anal fin coloured like the dorsal.
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