The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1893-11-30
OECKEO BY NATURE.
Wonderful Transformations Wrought
Suddenly on Some Small Fishes.


Early in the present spring, SAYS the
Lon,ion Spectator. the marquis of Ham
ilton brought with him from Trinidad
q number Of little fish, less in size than
half-grown minnows, which were pre-
sented to the Geological society and
we've TO be seen at Easter 10 the num-
Der OF dozen or more swimming in
a glass bowl among thin growth of
water weeds in the warm chamber in
which the moths and butterflies are
Matched. Being small and elegant
they have a long and ugly scientific
name, the girardinus guppyi.
In the absence of label the writer
mistook them for the gudgeon which
form the food of the more rapaciouS
fishes, and was about to suggest that
they would be interesting material for
an experiment with the electric eels,
when ray of sunlight flashing through
the bowl revealed the astounding fact
that these fishes possessed beauties of
ornament not surpassed in kind by the
most exquisite birds of the tropics.
Each of the little creatures. though
so frail and so delicately formed that
It's body offered a scarcely greater OBJ
stacle in the passage'of the sunlight
than the water in which it swan, was
decorated on either side by one, or
sometimes by two of those exquisite
ornaments seen in the greatest perfec-
tion on the train Of the peacock, which
are perhaps best described at the pea
cock eye" 1t was no mere spCt lying
in ring of a different color such as
decorates the sides of trout or sal
mon, but a perfectly developed pea
cock gem, lying in its gorgeous rings
of blue. green and gold, equally rich
and dark in tint, and even more strik-
ING from its contrast with the color
less and semitransparent body of the
creature it adorned.
The analogy with the pattern on the
peacock's tail was even more complete
than that which at first glance dis
closed, for on many of the fish u third
or rudlmentary eye appeared, fainter
and elongated, like smUdge of wet
color, and corresponding exactly with
the gradation or evolutionary process
of ornament which Charles Darwin
noted in the side feathers of the pea
coc'1 train. This wonderful decora-
ton, which was assumed. like the bril-
liant red and emerald of the English
sticlle backs, for the period of court
ship only, has now disappeared, and
the creatures abide in plain clothes
till next spring. But the character of
the ornament they wear suggests
further and separate interest beyond
that which their beauty naturally
claims.
Paternity which we mean the rep
etitiOn Of concern and regular forms
so as to produce an ornament which
pleases the eye without making any
demand on the minds by no means
the commonest form of decoration in
the higher animals. Contrasts of brill
liant cOlors, as in the plumage of the
birds of paradise and of the parrots
and lOrieS, are the common and beau
tiful adornments of birds. ANY visitor
to the cases of a good natural history
collection will find hundred instances
of this form of decoration for one of
true pattern. Even the wings of but
terflies, though spangled with color in
dots, lines and spots are usually devoid
of pattern, though the juxtaposition of
number of the same species would
But that effect, so far rs it is given
in a single individual, is, rs rule,
only due to the ntct that the creature
is itself symmetrical. and that the
lines and markings on one side of the
body are repeated upon the other. The
stripes upon tigers skin, for instance,
though in the nature of ornament, are
not pattern, though Il number of
tigers skins laid side by side might
produce to the eye the effect of pat
tern. The patterns themselves are
also few in number, and these limited
and favorite forms of enrichment are
applied indiacriminateiy and with
certain indifference 10 conmruity of
species, yet with unfaiIing success in
the result, to the most widely different
forms ia the animal creation.