Slight as are the organs of motion, they are sufficient for the
Pipe-fish’s ordinary exigencies; and Mr. Patterson has recorded an
interesting example of their capability to achieve movements of an
unusual kind. He had captured the finest of our species,[106] which
he had committed to a basin of sea-water. “One of the long-bodied
crustacea, which are abundant during fine weather, and had been
captured at the same time, was placed in the same vessel. It was a
species of _Gammarus_, and about an inch in length. The _Gammarus_
would seem to have got tired of swimming, and, for a resting-place,
it fixed itself on the back of the Pipe-fish, close to the tail. The
fish had not been a consenting party to this arrangement, and soon
evinced its dissatisfaction, by lashing the tail with great violence
on each side, to dislodge the intruder. He, however, kept his hold;
and so soon as the fish ceased for a few seconds, he crept a little
further up on the back, as if aware that the velocity of movement was
less near the centre of the circle. The fish lashed the water again
with great violence, but without any good result; and so soon as it
stopped, the _Gammarus_ crept up a little nearer to the head. The
_Gammarus_ seemed to be the marine prototype of the old Man of the
Mountain, whose pertinacity, in retaining his place on the back of
Sinbad the Sailor, is a portion of that lore of our boyhood, that is
never afterwards forgotten. The Pipe-fish then changed its tactics.
Instead of lashing with its tail, it gave to its whole body the kind of
movement it might have had if fixed on a Lilliputian spit, and in the
act of being roasted. The body was made to revolve round and round on
its longitudinal axis; but the _Gammarus_ still held on, and, at each
interval of rest, made a few steps further in advance. This was more
than once repeated, until, pitying the poor Pipe-fish, we removed the
cause of its annoyance to another vessel.”[107]
Among these pleasing little fishes some very remarkable deviations from
the ordinary economy of animals occur, though not quite unique. In
almost all the Mammalia of Australia, as is well known, the female has
an external pouch or false belly, into which the young is transferred
at a very early period of embryonic life, and there matured. In the
_Pipa_, or Surinam Toad, the eggs are laid by the female, and placed on
the broad back of the male, cells being then formed in the skin, which
receive the eggs till they are hatched. Somewhat like the latter is
the case of the Pipe-fishes, among which it is the male that acts as
wet-nurse. Along his belly runs a groove, formed by two flaps of skin,
within which the eggs, when laid by the female, are placed, and in
which they are safely carried till the birth of the infant fry.
How wondrously diversified are the modes ordained by the Divine
Wisdom for maintaining the economy of creation! What a depth is there
in that revelation concerning the everlasting Son, “in whom we have
redemption,”--that “all things were created by Him, and for Him,
and He is before all things, and by Him all things _hold together_
(συνέστηκε).”[108]