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SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS 



[VOL. 47 



the 



Fig. 96. — Three 

 embedded in 

 gelatinous mem- 

 brane in which they 

 are laid ; magnified. 

 (After A. Agassiz.) 



color, 20 or 30 feet in length, and 4 or 5 in width, composed of a 

 mucous substance which was perfectly transparent, to which, as a 

 whole, a purple color was imparted by the presence of specks dis- 

 tributed uniformly throughout the mass to the number of about 

 thirty or more to the square inch." The lit- 

 tle specks were embryonic fishes " moving 

 vigorously in their envelope, but without any 

 appreciable latitude of motion, or change of 

 relative position to each other." Baird could 

 not identify the little fishes but it happened 

 that Alexander Agassiz had shortly before 

 observed and investigated the veil with its 

 contents and determined it to be the product 

 of the angler. In 1882 Agassiz published 

 the results of his investigations and a re- 

 markable history was disclosed, which has 

 been supplemented by the more recent observa- 

 tions of Prince, Mcintosh and Masterman. 

 The "violet veil," in fact, is a great communistic cradle for the 

 large family of a single mother angler. It is, according to Agassiz, 

 " an immense ribbon-shaped mucous band, from two to three," or 

 it may be five, " feet broad, 

 and from twenty-five to thirty 

 feet," or even, according to 

 Prince, thirty-six feet long. 

 " It looks at a short distance 

 like an immense crape. The 

 mucus is of a light violet gray 

 color and the dark black pig- 

 ment spots of the young Loph- 

 ius, still in the egg, give to 

 the mass a somewhat blackish appearance. The eggs are laid 

 in a single irregular layer through the mass, usually well sepa- 

 rated by the mucus in which they float." The color of the 

 veil must vary from light when first issuing from the mother 

 Lophius to dark when the eyes of the larvae have become conspicuous. 

 The eggs may be as many as a million or more. (Thompson esti- 

 mated 1,420,000 and I* niton, 1,345,848.) Each egg is about a twelfth 

 of an inch or two millimeters in diameter. Thus the earliest stages 

 of development are passed and when the larva has burst its shell 

 envelope it immediately leaves the veil and begins life free on the 

 surface of the sea. 



Fig. (>/. — Young angler taken out of 

 the egg just previous to hatching. 

 (After A. Agassiz.) 



