314 A HISTORY OF FISHES 



a few minutes. During the embrace, when the bodies of the 

 two fishes are intertwined, the protruding oviduct of the female 

 is rapidly thrust into the small opening at the front end of the 

 male's pouch, and the eggs are thus transferred. By a series 

 of contortions the male then succeeds in moving the eggs to 

 the hinder end of the pouch (Fig. 113b), and then the whole 

 process is repeated until the pouch is full, after which the male 

 appears to be very exhausted and remains quiescent for some 

 time (Fig. 113c). 



The eggs remain in the pouch until hatched, but exen after 

 this event the fry may occupy it for some time, and, when they 

 are able to swim freely in the sea, will still return to its shelter 

 when danger threatens. Dr. Smitt has described a male 

 Broad-nosed Pipe-fish (Siphonostoma) which opened the pouch 

 (marsupium) by a downward m^ovement of the tail, whereupon 

 the young fishes crept out one after another. "As soon as I tried 

 to capture the male," he writes, "it made a sudden movement, 

 at the same time bending the body in an arch upwards, and 

 the young crept into the marsupium, the lids of which were 

 then shut." 



It is of interest to note that something of the habits of the 

 Pipe-fish, the Belone of the Greeks and the Acus of the Romans, 

 was known to Aristotle, although his interpretation of the facts 

 may have been rather wide of the mark. "That fish which is 

 called Belone^'' he states, "at the season of reproduction, bursts 

 asunder, and in this way the ova escape; for this fish has a 

 division beneath the stomach and bowels like the serpents 

 called typhlinae. When it has produced its ova it survives and 

 the wound heals up again." 



In a related family (Solenostomidae) the female takes care of 

 the eggs, keeping them in a pouch formed by the pelvic fins, 

 the inside of the chamber being provided with numerous long 

 filamentous processes, which serve to assist in retaining the eggs 

 in position. In the Sea Horses {Hippocampus), as in the Pipe- 

 fishes, it is the father who looks after the eggs and young, the 

 former being received into a brood-pouch beneath the tail, 

 where they remain until hatched. At the breeding season this 

 pouch becomes thickened and well supplied with blood-vessels, 

 thus being prepared for the reception of the eggs and the 

 nutrition of the embryos. At the same time the cloaca of the 

 female becomes somewhat extended to form a genital papilla, 

 which acts as a kind of intromittent organ for the transfer of 

 her ova to the male. The iinal extrusion of the young fish 



