The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1908-07-02
QUEER BERMUDA FISH.
Brilliant Hucs and Peculiar Shades
Among Their Characteristics.

muda, occupies the ola Imperial
magazine on Agar's Island, opposite
the Soncy hills, writes Lucy Elliot
Keeler in the Indianapolis News.
The underground chambers ana
vaulted passages afford excellent
opportunity for the arrangement of
Wall tanks, where one may observe
the fish comfortably on level with
Cnc's eyes. The fish are all from
Bermudan waters, and though the
numbers ire far less than those In
the New York aquarium the collcc-
tion is the most brillatly colored or
any it has been my fortune to see.
Indeed, many of the colors are or
the kinds called impossible. Moth
ing bnt the rainbow itself can rival
the angel fish, with its flashing
blues and greens and yellows, as II
swims lazily, its slow motions in
stinct with grace. 1t is broad, often
weighs up to four pounds, and sur
passes II other local fish in the
favor of its flesh as well as in its
lovely hues.
The tour eyed fish, small and de-
lighting in sheltered coves, has
ite true eyes hidden in a long black
STRIFE, slanting ;crcss its body,
while TWO black spots in its tail
are sufficiently realistic to de-
ceive any casual enemy into mis-
taking the fish's tail for it's head.
The hog fish Is very common here,
its popular name being derived
from its swinelike profile and denti-
tion. The long streamer like extern
sion of its fins gives it singularly
graceful appearance. Specimens
often weigh twenty pounds. The
Spanish hog fish has a coat of much
splendor about half blue and half
yellow.
Hamlets and groupers are the
same thing, the young fish called by
the first name, and those longer
than twenty inches by the second.
Hamlet" suggests a dual person.
alty, the fish changing color rap
Idly, representing when dark, the
gloomy Prince of Denmark; and
when pale and gloomy, the Princes
.
Devils Cave one day, natural cave
open above, where the fishermen Of
ten keep their catches, and over
which an ancient Neptune looking
native, with his trident, resides.
At feeding time the groupe ), many
of them four feet long, rushed up
savagely for their food, making
tremendous splashing; and the ar
ray of their great open mouths was
almost terrifying. These fish pos
sess the protective device of chang
ing their color rapidly.
Sergeant majors, with five black
cross bands upon their yellow sides,
like the chevrons of that non-com-
nissioned officer, the doctor fish,
with lancelike processes on the side
If its caudal peduncle, and with pro-
iessional instinct keeping its nose
close to the pipe down which fresh
water was brought to the tank; the
squirrel fishes, brighter than the
gold fishes of our fresh water aqua
ria; and the bonito and amber FISH,
20 highly priced for table use; the
seacat, less than six inches long, old
gold in color, elevating at will de-
cided coronet and tumbling gently
from ledge to ledge as it worked it's
way down the tank; and the soap
ash, which makes a lather, when at
tackled, to conceal itself from it's
enemy-how different all the Gre
lures are from the fish of our north
ern waters.
Among the other forms of fish
we're black eels and morays; some
striped morays weaving themselves
in and out of a drain pipe and about
each other until it seemed as if they
could never get united. The green
norays were solid moss color six
inches thick and possibly seven feet
long. / was told that these crea-
,ures coil themselves and strike like
cobra, up from a depth of thirty
feet OF water but ! cannot vouch for
he truth of the statement.
One tank was devoted. to small
9ctopi, sticking like inert masses
against the sides of the tank fasten-
I'd to its glass wall by hundreds OF
,uttonlike suckers. As the keeper
?oked them with stick they chang
ed color, unwnding their vicious
arms. recalling to the spectator the
monsters in Victor Hugos novel,
''Toilers of the Sea-" A dead octo-
pus, uncurled on neIghboring
beach, measured fourteen feet
spread. No less fantastic, though
gar less tendish, were the crayfish--
auch as we eat for Sunday suppers.
4 delicious white flesh--with gor-
yaous colored shells, which once a
ear split down the back and are
Immediately crawled out of by their
'rstwhile inhabitants. Bermuda
children have a debonair fashion of
lshing for crayfish with a bit of
ced flannel tied to a stout string.
)nly the fisher must be patient and
allow time for dipegtiOn tn bepin