322 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



this animal. Seizing a little conferva plant with his mouth, 

 the male raises it to the surface. Left there, the plant would 

 sink, but the fish emits some air bubbles, and places them 

 under it as a support. Repeating the process several times, 

 he thus produces the first day a small floating island, about 

 three meters in diameter. Next day he continues the supply 

 of air, and accumulates the bubbles toward the central part, 

 the efiect being to produce a sort of dome, balanced on the sur- 

 face. He then makes a rim for it with the same materials 

 plants and bubbles and, going inside, he smooths and soft- 

 ens the interior surface. The female is then solicited to en- 

 ter. The eggs are first deposited in a concave fold of the 

 dorsal fin of the male, where they are fecundated. After Islj- 

 ino- her esfcys, the female withdraws, leaving to the male fish 

 the education of his family. He deposits the eggs with care 

 separately in the raised part of the nest. At a later period, 

 when he sees they need a different medium and treatment, he 

 rises in the middle of the dome and bursts it, letting the bub- 

 bles escape, whereupon the structure flattens in the water 

 with the imprisoned embryos, which are beginning to appear 

 in a new stage of existence. To prevent their escape, he 

 tears the flat rim of the nest into a sort of hanging fringe. 

 For some time he exercises great surveillance over the prog- 

 eny, till their frequent escapes and excursions announce the 

 end of his fatigues, which occurs some eight or ten days after 

 the flattening of the nest. 1 B, Jcm.2, 1876, 198. 



INCUBATION OF CHROMIS PATERFAMILIAS. 



Among the various abnormal methods of incubation, none 

 are more curious than the habit of certain fishes of the cat-fish 

 family of keeping the eggs in the mouth until the young are 

 hatched, this act being generally performed by the male. 

 Quite recently M. Lortet has added to the list the Ghromis 

 2Kiterfamilias^ as observed in a stream near the borders of the 

 Sea of Tiberias, and not far from the ancient Capernaum. In 

 this case the female deposits her eggs in a sandy depression 

 in the bed of the stream, and the male sucks them into his 

 mouth, and by some peculiar action causes them to be inter- 

 polated between the plates of the gills, where they are held 

 without disturbance. The period of incubation is not men- 

 tioned, but the young, when hatched, leaving the gills, pass 



