70 The Point Loma Blind Fish. [ ZOE 
specimens examined. The optic nerve is very slender and long as 
compared with that of any of the other gobies. 
All these gobies are tenacious of life, especially the blind one. 
Several of the latter have been kept in a half-gallon jar of water for 
several weeks without change of water, and others have been kept 
several months in confinement in my laboratory. When the water 
becomes somewhat stale they frequently rise to the surface and 
use the surface of the water as a plane to which they attach them- 
selves by means of their ventrals. 
It was my intention to study the development of the eyes, etc., 
of this fish, and with this end in view I kept many specimens alive 
and made frequent trips to Point Loma to procure fresh individuals 
in order that too long confinement might not have impaired the 
reproductive function. They spawn in the latter part of May and 
June, but I have not found the eggs in nature. Those deposited in 
confinement would not develop, and attempts at artificial fertiliza- 
tion of freshly-caught individuals were not successful. An absence 
from San Diego prevented me from visiting their habitat during July, 
and in August the tides were not favorable. 
The earliest date at which I procured young was October 2 5th, 
the smallest caught at that time is represented in figure 4. 
Though I did not secure developing eggs, those procured enable 
me to describe the remarkable membranes of the egg, which are 
probably similar in many other gobies. * 
The covering of the ovarian egg consists first of a finely striate 
membrane, the zona radiata of all telostean eggs. Exterior to 
this is a network of threads with the meshes coarsest at the ento- 
dermic pole and forming almost a continuous membrane at the 
ectodermic pole, figs. 4 and 5. The eggs were examined from the 
surface only, and I am not able to say how intimate the connection 
between the threads and the zona is in the ovary. When the eggs 
are deposited the meshwork of threads is stripped off the egg and 
remains attached to the zona radiata around the micropyle, figs. 1, 
2,3 and 5. In the eggs deposited naturally by the females in con- 
finement the threads had been wound together to form a cord at 
the micropylar end of the egg, fig. 1. The cords of many of these 
eggs were attached to each other, and the eggs thus came to be laid 
in bunches like those of grapes. Whether this is usual or not Iam 
not able tosay. The bunches of eggs resemble so closely those of the 
