Yet in truth he makes a funny little tenant of the aquarium.
His colours are agreeable; deep rich brown on the upper parts,
fantastically patched and clouded with various shades from black to
pure white, while the sides and belly are brilliantly silvery or
opalescent. His countenance expresses considerable intelligence; and
the contrast between his aspect when he is alarmed, and all his spines
are laid flat, and when he thinks to carry his point by bullying, and
bristles up all his sharp lances, and glares with a threatening goggle,
is very amusing. He presently becomes at home; for a day or two he
skulks under the rocky ledges, and you see little of him; but soon his
characteristic impudence reassures him, and _vires acquirit eundo_; he
makes short hasty sallies into the open, and instantly scuttles back
to his retreat; presently you see his great head projecting out of
some crevice in the rocks, whence he can command a pretty extensive
view; and now that is his selected home, and there henceforward you
may pretty surely find him, whenever he is not to be seen engaged in
predatory forays in some other quarter of the tank. Now he grows very
saucy; not a Blenny or Goby or Pipe can come before his castle-gate but
Proach must dash out to have a passage-of-arms with him, returning,
in all the pride of conquest, when he has driven the routed foe out
of sight, to his rocky fortress, and settling himself in the same
watchful attitude as before. Every atom of meat that you drop into the
water within his range of vision must be his: you perhaps intended the
morsel for the Goby or the Blenny, but Proach sees it, and Proach must
have it. They indeed may sail up towards the speck, but Proach dashes
up, bristling with indignation at their temerity, and snaps the food
from before their very noses. Not one of them can get a bit till Proach
is satiated; and I have often seen him lie with a morsel projecting
from his mouth for some time, absolutely incapable of swallowing more,
before he would relinquish the contest. Now he fears nothing; he will
even rush to the surface when he sees you approaching, and, with a
sudden snap, seize the meat in your fingers, and drag it away.
Mr. R. Q. Couch gives us some interesting particulars of this little
fish, or his brother, the Sea-scorpion; for they are so much alike,
both in appearance and manners, that some naturalists do not recognise
any specific difference between them. “When caught,” he says, “it
makes a croaking kind of noise; opens its gill-covers, and erects the
spines of its head, and stiffens its whole body, as if prepared for a
vigorous defence. The spines are covered with a skin or sheath, which
the creature has the power of drawing from the points and leaving
them bare. This fish will live a long time out of water, provided
it be kept slightly wet, but soon dies on immersion in fresh water.
Those fish that swim deeply are able to sustain life much longer than
those that swim near the surface; and the former are more sluggish in
their movements, and require less aërated water for respiration. The
more active are surface-swimmers. The immersion in fresh water acts
as a poison, death not resulting from any variation in the respirable
quality of the water. If a Sea-scorpion, after being taken from the
sea, be constantly kept wet with salt water, it will live for a
considerable time, the gill-covers acting as if surrounded by water.
If the gills be kept wet and the skin dry, the creature gets restless,
croaks, the gills move less rapidly than before, and it then dies at an
earlier period than when kept altogether moist. If the gills be wetted
with fresh water well aërated, life is not so long retained, but the
fish seems more active for a time, and dies at last almost in a state
of plethora.”[102]
According to Yarrell, “this species spawns in January, and the ova at
that time are very large and of a fine orange-yellow colour. These
are deposited near the sea-shore, frequently in the estuaries, and
sometimes even in rivers; the fish having prepared itself for this
change by its previous residence in the brackish water, after which
it appears to be able to bear either extreme. Its food is small
crustaceous animals, and it is said to be particularly partial to
feeding on the fry of the Blennies.”