678 



SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 



prey to it. TIidii.u'Ii tlic uioutli is snisill, it is (•a[)al)le 

 of (|iiite considerable extension, as we have already 

 remarked of the two preceding species. There is no 

 douht, liowcscr, that the I)eep-nosed Pipetish niidcr- 

 takcs roving expeditions at the snrt'ace of deeper wa- 

 ter: one of the Bohuslilii fishermen who have collected 

 marine animals for the Royal Museum, has handed 

 over to Professor S. Loven a specimen taken "in the 

 North Sea, off l^ergen." 



Ekstrum's experience in the island-belt of MorkO 

 was that, "though the Deep-nosed Pipefish haunts the 

 shore, in shallow water, it still repairs to deep water 

 during the wai-iner part of the year". In autumn, 

 winter, and tlie earlv jiart of sjjriiig it is met with in 

 the inlets, in water of little depth. From the end of 

 April to the beginning of November it is less plenti- 

 ful in these localities, and during the \vliole of May 

 and a part of .Tune it is taken extremely seldom and 

 invariably in deep water. In temperament it seems to 

 be sluggish and not very timid. Its movements in the 

 water are stiff', and betoken but little activity." 



It was the history of the Deep-nosed Pipefish that 

 gave Ekstkom the clue to the explanation of the hitherto 

 obscure sexual relations of all the Lophobranchs. "It 

 has long l)een known,' he writes in 1831, "that the 

 Deep-nosed Pipefish carries the roe as well as the new- 

 hatched young under its tail. Even Aristotle' re- 

 marked in this species the peculiaritj', otherwise rare 

 among fishes, that the eggs seem to pass, not as in 

 most fishes througli tlie vent, ))ut througii a slit in tlie 

 body. He did not pay any attention, ho^vever, to the 

 organ that envelops the eggs and the young during 

 tlieir development, l)ut supposed that the eggs were 

 metamorphosed witiiin the aljdominal cavity, and that 

 the belly itself was opened b)' the development of the 

 eggs, at the slit which appears behind the vent. He 

 thus seems to have been the first to pronnilgate the 

 long persistent theory that this slit did not belong to 

 a distinct organ, but was due to the burstinij of the 



l)elly Ijy tlie growth of the eggs. .Elian' maintained 

 the same opinion. Plinv quotes the verj' words of 

 Aristotle, with the only alteration that the bursting 

 of the l^elly was due to the number of the eggs. 

 RoNDELi'.T'' was the first to remark that the eggs are 

 contained in a special organ." Roxuelet further stated 

 that the females are distinguished l)y the possession of 

 this organ from the males, an opinion which survived 

 until EKSTHriM j)ul)lished his observations at MOrkd. 

 "The spawning-season of the Deep-nosed Pipefish," says 

 Ekstkom, "occurs here in the month of May, when the 

 male is forced to seek his female, or rice versa: and 

 as a regular copulation Ijetwcen the sexes is necessary, 

 the spawning takes a longer time than among fishes 

 in general'. At the end of April the females desert 

 the .shore and the shallows to begin their sjjawning in 

 deeper water. As the S|)awning season approaches, the 

 foliate lids that close the opening of the maTsupium of 

 the male, become tumid, and the Tnarsupium is gi-adu- 

 ally filled with a Avhite, eleur, and thick mucus, which 

 serves as a bed for the eggs. The eggs lie indiedded 

 in this mucus, which deci-eases in quantity according 

 to the growth of the young, until little or none of it 

 remains by the time that the fry are large enough to 

 swim and independently to move through the water. 

 — The eggs, which lie in regular, nioniliform rows, are 

 large'^ in proportion to the fish and, when thev are 

 deposited, yellow, but gradually turn \vhite and lie- 

 come ti'anspai"ent with a fine, dark vellow point, the 

 riuliment of the embryo. — At the middle of June the 

 fish gradually return to the shore from their spawning- 

 places. At the end of July, in some cases, the young 

 are so developed that thev can leave the mai'supium 

 and follow the movements of their father. In other 

 eases the roe has been only just deposited. In a fe- 

 male about 2 dm. long I counted 240 eggs in the 

 o\'aries. In the marsupium of the male I never found 

 a quarter of this number''. Many of the eggs must, 

 therefore, l)e lost during copulation, and we must thus 



" KuciYEI! lias reiiiarkeil tlial ,nt this season the .shrimps also retire to ileeii wafer. 



' Hist, aniin., lili. VI, enp. XIII. This remark applies rather to the more common Mediterranean species jSi/n^/nitlius Rondeletii. 



' Lib. II, cap. XIII. 



" De Pise, lib. VIII. p. 'J29. 



'■ More recently it has been diseovorcd that the copulation mnst be repeated several times, for a female never discharges all her eggs 

 nt once into the marsupinm of the male, the anterior end of which is open during copulation, and is penetrated by the oviduct, now pro- 

 jecting to a length of several millimetres. Cf. L.\i'-o.s'T, Actes de la Soc. Linn, de Bordeaux, 1871, t. 28, p. 251, Heincke, .\rclj. f. Xaturg.. 

 1. c, p. 330, and Lii,i.JEnori<;, 1. c. p. 438. 



.'' About 2 mm. in diameter. 



'' In (lie ui:ir>upia of the largest males from Kiel Bay, however, Heincke found 150 — 200 eggs. 



