Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1883-08-21
Artificial Sea-BottOms and the Chame-
leon Founder

leon flOunueF.
In describing "Professor Agassiz,s La
boratOry'' at Newport, Ernest Ingersoll
says in the September Century: 'The ta-
bles are not of large size-abOut like a IL
brary deSk-but are firmly constructed
and serviceable. They are covered with
English glazed tiles-while, except two
black rows at the end, furnishing oppo-
site backgrounds to the glass vessel in
which the often almost invisible morsel
of animal life is floating. What cannot
readily be seen against white surface
may become plainly apparent in front of
\ black one. On the long middle tables
Mr.. AgassiZ has enlarged upon this idea
by covering them with spaces of Variously
colored tiles Stimulating natural sea bot
toms. The clear gray does well enough
for sand; dark leaden gray for mud;
mottled castile-soap pattern i'm brown for
pebbles; and dulse-green for sea weed
lt is popular error, or, at any rate, pre-
Yalent thOughtleSsness, that sea animals
pay no attention to the sort of bottom lAn-
derneath them as they move about, If this
is true OF any, 1t certainly is not OF large
number OF kinds. Some are confined to
districts limited by one sort of bottom
because it provides their only food:
others because they are safer from
harm than they would be elsewhere; a
third class perhaps from choice, or for
some reason not readily discernible. In
any case, it has been both suspected and
proved that the character of the bottom
has great influence, particularly in the
matter of color, upon the fishes and others
frequenting district of mud or sand or
rocky or weed-grOwn bottom respectively.
1t was in order to experiment in this di-
rectiOn that Mr.. Agassiz invented and
provided these initiative surfaces, which
should form an artificial bottom resem-
bling sand, pebbles, ETC., when the dish
containing fish or invertebrate to be de-
ceived should be set upon it.
81 can mention here only one of the in
teresting results of the experiments. The
founders, as everybody knows. is an i'll
looking, dark-colOred fiat fish, which
creepS close along the bottom. and FREE
quents for the most part banks of mud.
from which it is almost tindIstinguishable.
occasionally the founder occurs in sandy
districts, in which case it is of yellowish
tinge, though not otherwise different from
its black neighbor of the mud. Taking
young founders, Mr.. AgassiZ experj-
mented upon their power of changing
color. Placing them upon the blackish
tiles, they quickly turned mud color:
moved thence to the sand tiles, only
few moments elapsed before their ieaden
skins had paled to dull yellowish white:
transferred to the mimic ssea-weed,' in
less than five minutes a greenish hue
OVerspread their skins, which would have
served well i'll their native element to
keep them unObserYed against a mass Of
alge. AS the founders grew older, the
rapidity and facility with which these
changes were effected lessened, and per-
haps they would altogether cease in aged
individuals who had never practiced as
turncOats; but the readiness with which
the youngsters altered their compilations
to suit their circumstances, as shown bv
experiments IN TINS laboratory, would