BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 193 



To!. Ill, No, 13. Washington, D. C. Sept. 3, 1883. 



17. -ON THE THREAD-BEARIIVG EGGS OF THE SILVERSIDES 



(MEIVIOIA). 



By JOHN A. KYDEK. 



Three years have elapsed since the writer was enabled to study the 

 remarkable ova of the genus Menidia, on the night of July 3, 1880, in 

 Mobjack Bay, Matthews County, Virginia, near New Point Comfort light- 

 house, and he has delayed any further and fuller account of what was 

 then observed, in the hope that additional material might be obtained 

 in order that the embryological history of the genus might also be 

 investigated. This delay has not yet enabled the author to get the 

 desired material, and he therefore proposes to describe only what he 

 has observed respecting the mature unimpregnated ova. 



In earlier papers, published in this Bulletin, I have incidentally 

 alluded to the eggs of Menidia under the name of Chirostoma, as then 

 current, and in order to avoid misapprehension it will therefore be 

 necessary to first consider the form in respect to its systematic place 

 and synonymy. According to Jordan and Gilbert (Synopsis of the 

 Fishes of North America), Menidia is the proper designation of a rather 

 common type of Atherinoid fishes, of small size, the species of which 

 have collectively received the name of " silversides," probably from the 

 presence of a broad silvery band on the sides of the translucent green- 

 ish body. They resemble markedly the Mugilidce or mullets in general 

 appearance, and are allied to them. The species now included under 

 Menidia have been placed in a number of genera by different authori- 

 ties, such as Chirostoma, Atherinicthys, Argyrea, Basilichthys,&c, but the 

 form in question which furnished the eggs for our study corresponded 

 most nearly with that of Chirostoma notata of later writers, so that 

 Menidia notata, Mitch. (J. & G.) is the now recognized name of the 

 form here considered. 



It may also be of interest to give some account of the circumstances 

 under which the eggs were obtained. The steamer Lookout was lying 

 at anchor after dark in about two or three fathoms of water ; some of 

 the crew while fishing for crabs noticed that a great many small fishes, 

 four or five inches long, were being attracted by the lights which they 

 held over the side of the vessel. Some of these were soon captured by 

 Mr. William Hamlin and Mr. W. P. Sauerhoff, who upon pressing the 

 specimens found that some of them were gravid females with ripe eggs 

 in their roes. No mature males were obtainable at the time, and inas- 

 much as I was engaged during the rest of my stay upon the study of 

 the development of two other species of valuable food-fishes, I had no 



Bull. U. S. F. C, 83 13 



