384: Professor W. C. Mcintosh [Feb. 1, 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, February 1, 1889. 



John Rae, M.D. LL.D. F.R.S. Vice-President, 

 in tlie Chair. 



Professor W. C. McIntosh, M.D. LL.D. F.R.S. &c. 



The Life-history of a Marine Food-fish. 



It is but a few years since the life-history of our most important 

 marine food-fishes was involved in considerable obscurity — not only 

 as regards popular views, but even in resj)ect to the knowledge of 

 men of science. Thus, for instance, in the years 1883 and 1884 the 

 almost unanimous opinion of British fishermen was that our common 

 food-fishes sought the shallow water of the bays and inshore ground 

 generally for the purj)ose of depositing their eggs on the bottom. 

 No observations specially bearing on this point had been made by 

 British zoologists, and a series hud to be undertaken for a public 

 inquiry then in progress — with a result which demonstrated how 

 extensive the reverse of the popular notion was. Again certain 

 comparatively recent authors on British fishes speak of a common 

 fish like the gurnard as spawning twice a year, whereas, after careful 

 observation, no evidence in support of this view has been obtained. 

 The same obscurity veiled the larval and post-larval conditions of 

 most of the food-fishes, even G. O. Sars — in regard to the latter 

 stage — describing no intermediate forms between the larva of 6 mm. 

 and the post-larval stage of 24 mm. in the cod — almost the only fish 

 to which some attention had been paid. 



On the other hand, our knowledge of the development and life- 

 history of the fresh-water fishes — such as the salmon, trout, and 

 charr — has for many years been well understood — thanks to the 

 labouts of Louis Agassiz and Vogt in Switzerland, Coste and 

 Lereboullet in France, Ransom in England, and Shaw in Scotland, 

 on the scientific side, and of the noblemen and gentlemen of Perth- 

 shire (ably seconded by Robert Buist) in connection with Stormont- 

 field Ponds on the Tay, on the popular side. Much information 

 has also been recently obtained by Dr. Day and Sir J. Gibson 

 Maitland at the excellent ponds of the latter at Howieton. 



A short time ago, relying on experience derived from fresh- 

 water fishes, not a few imagined the eggs of marine fishes as readily 

 visible and tangible objects — possibly associated in their minds with 

 certain practices in trout-fishing, or it may be with the manufacture 

 of caviare. Recent investigations, however, have shown that in most 



