218 THE BLENNY FAMILY. 



If the adults are examined in November, December and 

 January many are characterized by the great distention of the 

 abdomen, due to the enlarged roe or ovary. The opinion of 

 Willughby, therefore, that the species brings forth its young 

 in the depth of winter, seems to be most in accord with the 

 condition on the Scottish shores. 



In the ovary the embryos, which correspond to the larvse 

 of other forms, lie over each other in a compact mass, yet the 

 surrounding fluid in the chamber not only moistens the gill- 

 apparatus, but enables them to glide over each other with ease. 

 Stretching inward, moreover, from the thin wall of the ovary 

 is a coating of long villous processes, which in shape are often 

 clavate, narrow at the base and wide at the tip, many of the 

 latter, indeed, forming somewhat flattened sucker-like surfaces. 

 These are the processes on which the developing eggs were 

 situated, and which, as will by-and-by be mentioned, afterwards 

 perform important functions in regard to the embryos. In trans- 

 verse section the wall of the ovary, to which the foregoing are 

 fixed, presents a thick cellular (epithelial) layer on the surface, 

 while the stroma beneath consists of mixed muscular and other 

 fibres and cells. To this coat the membranous vascular processes 

 are attached. When viewed as transparent objects the latter 

 show a complete meshwork of anastomosing blood-vessels, which 

 do not seem to be reduced to the size of capillaries, since in 

 the smallest twigs several blood-corpuscles pass in column. A 

 large volume of blood is thus swiftly carried into the organ. 

 In transverse section, the vessels are arranged along the external 

 margins of all the folds, so that they are in close contact with 

 the fluid in the ovarian chamber. A thin epithelial coat with 

 connective or basement-tissue beneath alone intervenes between 

 them and the cavity. The walls of these blood-vessels are 

 somewhat thick. In specimens examined immediately after the 

 discharge of the embryos externally, the vessels are remarkably 

 large and conspicuously gorged with blood. Whilst preserving 

 in the main a longitudinal direction, each trunk has connections 

 with the adjacent vessels at short intervals. The villous pro- 

 cesses carrying these vessels fill the ovarian chamber at this 

 time (after the extrusion of the young), while intermediate 



