No. 3.] ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY. 355 



threads, or they were, more rarely, scattered at a greater distance 

 one from the other. Nowhere was there much regularity ob- 

 servable in the distribution of the beads, and they were found 

 scattered throughout the whole ball of sea-weeds pretty uniformly. 

 The beads themselves were about the size of an ordinary pin's 

 head. We had, no doubt, a nest before us, of the most curious 

 kind ; full of Cfrors too ; the e2:j2;s scattered throui^hout the mass 

 of the nest and not placed together in a cavity of the whole struc- 

 ture. What animal could have built this singular nest, was the 

 next question. It did not take much time to ascertain the class 

 of the animal kingdom to which it belongs. A common pocket 

 lens at once revealed two large eyes upon the side of the head, 

 and a tail bent over the back of the body, as the embryo uni- 

 formly appears in ordinary fishes shortly before the period of 

 hatching. The many empty egg-cases observed in the nest gave 

 promise of an early opportunity of seeing some embryos freeing 

 themselves from their envelope. Meanwhile a number of these 

 eggs with live embryos were cut out of the nest and placed in 

 separate glass jars to multiply the chances of preserving them, 

 while the nest as a whole was secured in alcohol, as a memorial 

 of our unexpected discovery. The next day I found two em- 

 bryos in one of my glass jars; they occasionally moved in jerks, 

 and then rested for a long while motionless upon the bottom of 

 the jar. On the third day I had over a dozen of these young 

 fishes in my rack, the oldest of which began to be more active, 

 and promised to afford further opportunities for study. 



^ ^ ^ 'But what kind of fish was this ? About the time 

 of hatching, the fins of this class cf animals differ too much from 

 those of the adult, and the general form exhibits too few peculiar- 

 ities, to afford any clue to this problem. I could suppose only 

 that it would probably prove to be one of the pelagic species of 

 the Atbntic, and of these the most common are Exocoetus, Nau- 

 cratus, Scopelus, Chironectes, Syngnathus, Monacanthus, Tetrao- 

 don and Diodon. Was there a way to come nearer to a correct 

 solution of my doubts ? 



As I had in former years made a somewhat extensive study of 

 the pigment cells of the skin^ in a variety of young fishes, I now 

 resorted to this method to identify my embryos. Happily we had 

 on board several pelagic fishes alive, which could afford means of 

 comparison, but unfortunately the steamer was shaking too much 

 and rolling too heavily, for microscopic observation of even moder- 



