You will pretty certainly find in your net, too, twining and writhing about like little snakes, some of the smaller species of Pipe-fishes, often called Sea-adders, and most abundantly the smallest of them, and the commonest in shallow waters,--the Worm Pipe.[104] The pretty Æquoreal Pipe, or as Mr. Couch appropriately names it, the Painted Sea-adder (from the variegated tints of brown and yellow, wherewith its numerous angular plates are individually adorned), is abundant enough all along our southern coast, in deeper water, affecting the extensive beds of zostera, and of sea-weeds, which in many places clothe the bottom. The eminent Cornish zoologist observes of this species, that “in May and June, and frequently in July, and occasionally in August, these fish rise to the surface of the water, however deep it may be, and bask themselves in the sun. They retain their position at the surface by clasping with their tails the cords and buoys of the crab-pots, sticks, or any other substance they may find floating at the surface. The whole of the caudal portion of the body is coiled round the stick or cord, and the heads lie either horizontally or at right angles to the surface. In some seasons the buoy-ropes of the crab-pots are literally obscured by them from the surface of the water down as far as the eye can penetrate.”
The little Worm Pipe may also lay claim to the title of “painted;” for its anterior parts especially are generally marked with spots of pure white bounded by a border of black, while the cheeks and throat are covered with a delicate flush of purple. The habit mentioned by Mr. Couch of curling the tip of the tail around objects in the water is manifested quite as strongly by this more slender and more flexible species, which does not possess any trace of a fin at the tail-tip. This prehensile organ is in a moment whipped round the stem of any sea-weed or similar object with which it comes into contact; and thus moored, the pretty Pipe throws its little body into all sorts of elegant contortions, hanging freely down, or elevating itself almost perpendicularly, at pleasure.[105]
The fins in this genus of fishes are very small and feeble. Some of them have a pair of excessively minute pectorals, an almost invisible anal, and a tiny fan for a caudal. All have a short delicate dorsal, and several have no other fin than this, of which section the Worm Pipe is an example. Yet, according to the Swedish naturalist, Fries, the young of this species possess at their birth both caudal and pectorals, the former extending far up on the body, both on the dorsal and ventral edges. All these are in after life absorbed except sufficient to form the permanent dorsal. This fin, in the whole family, is excessively filmy, and is, during the action of swimming, fluttered with a very rapid screw-like vibration.