desirable to it, in these repeated strokes; but what could the naked hand of the worthy naturalist yield in the way of food? We must be content to reckon the action among the thousands which we observe in animals, to which our habits, instincts, and reason, afford us no clue whatever.
The colours of these little fishes, we have already said, are beautiful, and the style of coloration is not less striking than the tints themselves. A very common combination in the group is a ground colour of silvery white, frequently tinged with rose or yellow, on which are drawn narrow parallel lines of vivid colour, meeting at a sharp angle on the lateral line, frequently varied by ocellated spots, and transverse bands of black across the body and fins. Not rarely the ground colour is golden yellow, more or less intense, crossed by black bands.
The species are very numerous; one hundred and ninety-four are enumerated by the Prince of Canino as belonging to the Family, of which one hundred and fifty are of the typical form. They swarm in the warm seas, all round the globe, but, as far as we know, only in the vicinity of land. The reefs of coral with which the shores, both of the islands and continents in the equatorial regions, are girt, are the favourite resorts of these painted little fishes. Not a single species of the typical Chætodons is found so far north as Europe; there is, however, one belonging to the more aberrant genera, closely allied to the Archer (Toxotes), whose occasional capture on these coasts warrants its enumeration among British Fishes: with a notice of its generic and specific characters we close our account of the Family.
