ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 33 



briefly summarised. In the female the eggs are to be found in three 

 different stages of development ; the number ripening at one time is 

 about twenty. The male takes these in his mouth, where they remain 

 until after hatching, until, in fact, the yolk sac is absorbed. During 

 the whole of this incubation period the male is condemned to fasting. 



Food of Plaice and Dabs.* — James Johnstone, as the result of 

 the examination of the stomachs of 114 plaice and 146 dabs caught in 

 the same hauls, has made out an interesting contrast in the matter of 

 their feeding. The dab is an omnivorous feeder, taking anything on 

 the sea bottom from a sprat to a zoophyte, but nevertheless indicating a 

 preference for particular food-animals such as Ophiuroids, crabs, and 

 Lamellibranchs. In the case of the plaice, by far the commonest food- 

 animals appear to be Lamellibranchmolluscs, e.g. Solen. Next in 

 importance come the Polychaste worms, which very seldom afford an 

 exclusive food for the plaice, but are nearly always associated with 

 Lamellibranchs. Both errant and tubicolous forms are eaten. Ophiuroids 

 afford a very exceptional food. In the consideration of the commoner 

 food-animals eaten by each species there is a probable explanation of the 

 ubiquity of the dab as compared with the plaice. Some interesting com- 

 ments are made on the relation of the food supplies to the migrations 

 of fishes. 



Teleostean Abnormalities.! — James Johnstone describes an herm- 

 aphrodite hake from the West of Ireland. Both ovaries are present 

 and apparently normal, but at the posterior end of each is a testis, which 

 is well developed and larger than the ovary to which it is attached. 

 At the place of union the lumina of the ovaries are continuous with 

 those of the proximal part of the testes. The probability is that the 

 fish was a functional male. The same paper contains an account of a 

 Trigla yurnardus with an abnormal lower jaw. The mouth is reduced 

 to a small crescentic slit, and both jaws are quite immovable. The 

 chief modification of the skull consists in the dwarfing of the bones of 

 the lower jaw. There is no apparent angulare, but this is perhaps 

 ossified with the articulare. This element is greatly altered in form, 

 having its long axis dorsiventral. The lower jaw proper consists of an 

 apparently single bone, which is a flat hoop forming the lower margin 

 of the gape. It is probably due to the fused and completely ossified 

 Meckelian cartilages. 



(Esophageal Pouches in Centrolophus niger Gmelin.J — John 

 Rennie in a note on the function of these structures records the fact 

 that in a specimen found off the north-east coast of Scotland they were 

 " filled with a soft, creamy, pulpy substance, similar to the contents of 

 the stomach and pyloric caeca," but in a less advanced stage of digestion. 

 He suggests that those fishes possessing such pouches, Stromateidaa and 

 Tetragonuridas, may regurgitate their food ; " and as these pouches are 

 so very thoroughly supplied with spines, it seems possible that some 

 sort of rumination is indulged in." 



* Proc. and Trans. Liverpool Biol. Soc, xxi. (1907) pp. 316-27 (2 charts!. 



t Tom. cit., pp. 309-14 (3 figs.). 



% Ann. Scot. Nat. Hist., No. 61 (1907) pp. 216-1S. 



Feb. 19th, 1908 u 



