Anderton. — Observations on Neiv Zealand Fishes. 483 



the end of the mouth. The newly hatched larvae are the smallest 

 and most helpless of any that have yet been handled ; they are 

 quite transparent and colourless, and lay for a long time motion- 

 less on the surface of the water. A dra\\ang was made of a 

 larva on the third day after hatching (Plate XIX, fig. /). 



The Crayfish (Palinurus edwardsii). 



The cra^-iish is very valuable to us, inasmuch as it is the 

 only large edible crustacean at present inhabiting our coastal 

 waters. It is generally supposed to be of sedentary habits, and 

 to live for a great part of its life within a very restricted area. 

 Large hauls of them are occasionally taken in the trawl some 

 distance from shore, and on a sandy bottom. The fishermen 

 say they are then on the move, and it would appear that at 

 certain periods a great migratory movement takes place from 

 one part of the coast to another. I do not know at what part 

 of the year this occurs, or if at regular intervals every year, 

 hut no doubt more light will be thrown on the subject before 

 long. 



Two large berried females were brought alive to the station 

 on the 27th April by Mr. J. Noble, of the ketch " Carrie." These 

 two have been continually under observation — for some time 

 in a glass tank and some time in the tidal pond — for a period of 

 eight months, and the eggs were found to be " eye-ing " at the 

 end of November, and by the 7th December they were com- 

 mencing to hatch out. 



On the 8th November sixteen other berried females were 

 brought to the station by Mr. Noble. All the attached eggs were 

 eyed. The adults were placed in a 5 ft. by 5 ft. glass tank, 

 where they soon made themselves at home, and fed well. During 

 the daytime they generally huddled together in a heap in a corner 

 of the tank, but moved about freely at dusk. They could often 

 be seen " sitting up," as it were, on their tail, and rapidly moving 

 their swimmerets and attached eggs to and fro, as if in the act 

 of swimming, using their last pair of legs, which in the females 

 are chelate, to clean off any particles of sediment that had 

 adhered to them. 



The eggs of two were combed off into a McDonald hatching- 

 jar on the 8th, and these commenced to hatch on the 18th 

 November. The first embryos were seen in the large tank on 

 the 24th November, and from that date until the 10th December 

 vast numbers swarmed in the tank, swimming freely near the 

 surface, and generally congregating where the light was strongest. 

 It is estimated that seven million embryos were hatched, most of 

 which were retained in the hatching-boxes from three to nine 



