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.