NOTES ON JAPAN! SE MYXINOID8 .'{ 



spawning. From my noirs I grive the following abstract relating to 

 their life habits. 



In the matter of feeding-: They are doI exclusively bottom 

 feeders, for they found their way into a fish floal which was anchored 

 near the shore in a couple of fathoms water. And they here showed 

 their predatory habits in a way which upon several occasions I would 

 gladly have dispensed with. They would find their way into the 

 float through crevices which seemed too narrow for their entrance, 

 and they would attack and kill living fishes. I found that even 

 electric rays, Ast rape dipterygia, were not immune, for in several 

 instances I detected hag-fish in the fish float side bv side with these 

 rays and noticed that the fin margins of the latter showed the rasped 

 sores which are typical of the injuries caused by hag fishes. This is 

 still another instance that even elasmobranchs are subject to their 

 attack.* The rays, it may be noted, were active, having been freshly 

 caught, and were, one might reasonably conclude, well protected by 

 powerful electric organs : to be sure, they were confined in a float, 

 but it was of such a size as to give them plenty of room in which to 

 move about : their only disadvantage was that they were unable to 

 escape the continued pursuit of their enemies. That the hag-fish, 

 moreover, exhibits to a greater degree than hitherto recorded, activity 

 and persistence in pursuit of free swimming prey is more than prob- 

 able from the following incident. According to Mr. Tsuchida, an 

 assistant at the Misaki Laboratory, scmid had often been successfully 

 kept alive in a neighboring fish float : one night, however, living 

 squid were confined in the float, but by some accident the lid was not 



* This is mentioned, since it has been stated (Ayers, H., Wood Holt- Biol. Lectures, 189*. 

 p. 133) that these fishes are not subject to their attacks. I have already (Kupffer Festschrift, 

 1899, p. 224) noted the example cited by Johannes Müller. Doflein has observed recently 

 hat a hxg-fish entered the visceral cavity of a ray which was confined in the same {Mil. 



