4 Gravely, Notes oji the Spawning of Eledone. 



suckers then closed over it completely. The siphon was 

 at once extended so that its distal end passed between the 

 two ventral arms, under the clasped suckers, and so 

 inwards till it must have been close to the mouth ; it was 

 held in this position for a few moments, during which the 

 eggs and a glutinous material must have been conveyed 

 through it to the oral funnel ; and directly it was with- 

 drawn the proximal suckers began pressing the glutinous 

 material upon the glass to form the disc for the attach- 

 ment of the bunch, and a few of the eggs appeared from 

 behind them. 



As the remainder of the processes connected with the 

 formation of the bunch had been seen already several 

 times, the animal was disturbed at this stage in order to 

 find out how the eggs were then arranged. As it drew 

 back they were left, already in a cluster {Fig. 7), attached 

 by its upper end to the glass of the aquarium. When 

 removed, the whole bunch was found to be extremely 

 glutinous, holding together and sticking readily to my 

 fingers, and eventually to the cork on to which I pressed 

 the attachment plate that had already been somewhat 

 indefinitely formed out of the glutinous material. The 

 eggs were hanging in a matrix of this same material ; 

 they were all arranged stalk uppermost, but the free ends 

 of the stalks were not yet fastened together to form a 

 common stem for the whole bunch. As it seems hardly 

 possible that so many eggs should have been placed in 

 position in the extremely short time that j)a.ssed between 

 the time of their entering the oral funnel and the time 

 when the mother wasdriven away from them it may safely, I 

 think, be concluded that they all passed through the siphon 

 with their stalks pointing in the same direction. They 

 in no way differed from the eggs of a completed bunch in 

 appearance when laid, but since they were preserved in 



