Volume 1

The history of British fishes / [Robert Hamilton].

  • Hamilton, Robert, M.D.
Date:
[1876]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The history of British fishes / [Robert Hamilton]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    84/392 (page 78)
    It was this modificatinii which in ancient times so greatly excited admiration at tlie beanteons ver- satile tints of the dying (misnamed) Dolphin of the Mediterranean—the Corr/p/t/vna kippiiriis ; and which in later days drew forth the remarks of ]Mr. Borlasse, the learned author of the Natural History of CoiTiwall. “ The coloured streaks of the Mackerel,” he observes, “ are justly admired when the fish is dead; but they arc greatly su- perior in beauty when it is alive. AVheu first J caught, its colours are strong and lively; the « streaks on the back are of a full dark-blue green, the ground being willow-green ; but as the fisli grows fainter, the streaks, losing their strength, grow paler, and the blue goes off. Put the fish again into a ])ail of sea-water, it will begin to move, and as it revives, the colours renew their lustre ; take it out of the water, and the colours faint and fade away as before. However inexplicable, then*- fore, that configuration of parts may be, to which the tints arc attributable, it is plain, in this case, that the height of the colouring is owing to the cir- culation of the juices in those fine capillary vessels and membranes of which the entire covering is composed : as the blood stagnates, the mass settles into a state of rest, incapable of reflecting the rays of light with equal vivacity. (Lib. cit. 2(il>.) Some- thing, however, we may add, is probably owing in this instance to the different degrees of the trans- j arency of the scales. But tliat a great and almost an immediate change