NO. 4 (1922) THE COROMANDEL FLYING-FISH FISHERY 105 



THE SPAWNING HABITS OF FLYING-FISHES. 



The bundles of leaves, which had been streamed out for six hours, 

 were brought on board and one of the Kavalai bundles gave us the 

 key to the real reason why these flying-fishes congregate around 

 these bundles. It is not, as formerly believed, to obtain shade and 

 shelter ; it is to find a place suitable for the deposit of their spawn. 

 The proof J was plain; the branches and leaves of the shrub 

 were full of a tangled-up multitude of tiny colourless eggs with 

 innumerable glassy threads, tough and elastic, attaching them in 

 masses to one another and also to the leaves and branches of the 

 plant. The eggs were devoid of colour, transparent save at one 

 pole, where a tiny opaque white disc, the blastoderm area, was 

 distinguishable. All as it proved subsequently had been fertilized. 

 My assistant, Mr. Ramaswami Nayudu, kept similar eggs alive for 

 over 24 hours and was able to watch the early development of the 

 embryo, which will be described by him in a separate note. The 

 filaments attached to the eggs are sometimes surprisingly long 

 and highly elastic, and admirably adapted to tangle the eggs 

 securely among the leaflets of floating seaweed (Sargasso-weed 

 chiefly) which is undoubtedly the natural object for the purpose. 

 The diameter of each egg is from I'6 to 1'8 mm. 



I was informed but could not verify the statement that the 

 fishermen sometimes detach these eggs, crush them and throw the 

 resultant mass back into the sea ; this is said to attract further 

 numbers of flying-fish which eagerly devour this form of ground 



bait. 



This statement of the fishermen is confirmed by the fact that 

 on a previous occasion (29th July 1919) the stomach of a spent 

 female brought ashore at Madras by the crew of a fishing catamaran, 

 contained nothing but a mass of eggs with thread-like entangle- 

 ments, such as we now know to belong to this species of flying-fish. 

 Whether they devour their eggs under normal conditions, say after 

 having finished spawning, or only when broken up and thrown out 

 as ground-bait by fishermen, has yet to be determined. 



By three o'clock in the afternoon when fishing was suspended, 

 the catamaran had drifted to a point 22 miles to the north-east of 

 Negapatam, and into a depth of 30 fathoms, a northerly drift 

 approximately of \Vz mile per hour. 



