50 TELEOSTEAN FISHES IN THE SOUTH-WESTERN DISTIUCT. 



changes of which I have no knowledge. For the present I have been 

 prevented by bad weather from obtaining such a series of examples 

 as would enable us to state the relation of dimension of egg to that 

 of parent with anything like certainty. 



It has already been suggested by Calderwood and myself (Trans. 

 R. Duh. Soc, V. p. 504) that the absence of the A. lophotes type from 

 regions, e.g. Scandinavia, where A. laterna is well known, is quite 

 intelligible in the light of Maitland's researches on *S^, levencnsis ; and 

 I tliink that the establishment of well-marked differences in tlie 

 dimensions of the ova from large and small scaldfish parents would 

 go far to support this view. 



The tow-nets have not yielded any scaldfish eggs at the times when 

 spawning fish have been trawled, and, indeed, I have only found the 

 egg on two occasions in British waters. Ehrenbaum failed to obtain 

 the eggs at the surface on any occasion, and, concluding that they 

 might be confined to the deeper layers of water, secured them finally 

 by the use of the vertical net between 18 and 40 m. (say 9 to 22 

 fathoms). I have not been able to keep artificially fertilized eggs long 

 enough to speak with certainty as to their specific gravity throughout 

 the developmental period, but I have no hesitation in saying that 

 the buoyancy of an egg in ordinary off-shore sea-water is subject to 

 fluctuations which are explicable neither by species, degree of develop- 

 ment, nor obvious physical and meteorological causes. I have not 

 actually seen scaldfish eggs at the surface, but on the 6th June I found 

 newly-hatched larvas of A. laterna amongst ova and larva) taken at 

 the surface (four miles south of the Plymouth Mewstone) two days 

 previously. The only other egg obtained was taken in the bottom 

 tow-net on the 30th June, about two miles off Fowey river. The 

 larvai hatched from these eggs agree exactly with Ehrenbaum's figure 

 of A. laterna, as also with the Mediterranean forms, which I myself 

 associate with A. conspersiis. The ova and larva) of A. GroJimanni 

 must undoubtedly exist on our coasts, and it may therefore be of use 

 to point out that the larva (as I hope shortly to show in a communica- 

 tion to the Annales Mus. Nat. Hist. Marseille) is readily distinguished 

 from that of A. laterna by the presence of two post-anal pigment 

 bands. It is, in fact, the larva figured by Eaffaele as hatched from 

 ova resembling those of various species of Arnoglossus and of Blwm- 

 hoidichthys and Citharus. 



Note added in Press. 



Ar7iO(jIossus Grohmanni. — Two eggs, which proved to belorg to this species, 

 were taken at the surface on the 27tli July between tlie Eddystone and Hand 

 Deep?. 



