Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2Grey, George
History
Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2
Grey, George
Natural history -- Australia -- Western Australia; Western Australia -- Discovery and exploration
To one of these shells, the fish in which was alive and well, we found
attached a number of barnacles, some of which were of large size.
This sort of Janthina was very abundant; today we caught eight, and saw
great numbers of them: yesterday we caught a smaller one of a different
species. (Janthina exigua.)
This kind of Janthina is attached to its float by a sort of peduncle,
which it has the power of elongating, so that the fish itself sinks, with
its shell, and yet remains attached to the float, which continues at the
surface. In one instance, I saw this peduncle elongated to a length of
0.9 inches. It may, of course, have the power of sinking itself much
lower than I have seen it do. When it is in this state, the apparatus
with which it fills the float remains behind the peduncle in a state of
perfect quiescence.
The scarlet fluid emitted by this animal is of such a consistency that it
can be drawn away from it out of the water, like a glutinous thread.
A part of the animal requires attention, it is composed of an outer cup,
or circular lip, which it has the power of contracting or expanding in
the same manner as the valve; and when opened out like a cup, an orifice
can be seen at the bottom of it. It can also expand, and make broad the
arm; and it then appears to use them as sails.
This species of Janthina, I afterwards found, has the power of in some
manner taking in by suction a quantity of water, which it can suddenly
expel again with great violence, sending it out as if from a squirt.
We caught, also, an extraordinary fish this day. Its mouth has the
appearance of being situated on its back; a fin, 0.4 inches in length,
projected directly out from one side of the fish, and there was every
appearance of a perfectly similar one having been torn from the other
side; a hard horny membrane projected from underneath the stomach of the
animal, being apparently a sort of fin.
Its colour was of a silvery metallic lustre, having in parts a burnished
appearance, except where it is shaded (see Illustration 5 and below) and
then it was of a dark green colour; the tail was perfectly transparent,
except just where it joined the body, and there, where the shaded line
is, it was dark green.
This fish was swimming about, apparently preying on the tentaculae of the
barnacles, of which there were numbers round the ship attached to the
dead Velella, some of which I had caught yesterday; it appears therefore
probable that its mouth was placed in so extraordinary a position to
enable it to seize this pendant prey.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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