222 Records of the Indian Museum. [Vor,. XVI, 



only in the middle region. The alimentary canal is very short and 

 shows only the beginning of the stomach and the pyloric caecae. 

 The liver is better developed. The chambers of the heart are 

 becoming more consolidated and the air-bladder is distinctly 

 notched about the middle. The gills are much better developed. 

 The kidneys can be distinguished as faint thickenings, but no 

 genital organs can be satisfactorily identified. 



III. The Bgg-case of Chiloscyllium griseum. 

 (PI. XIX, fig. 5.) 



In 1914, Sundara Raj contributed to the ' ' Records of the Indian 

 Museum," Vol. X, pp. 318-319, a note on the breeding habits of 

 Chiloscyllium griseum, Miill. and Henle. In his note a description 

 of the egg-case of this dogfish was included. The egg-cases were 

 laid in the marine aquarium at Madras in January 1913. Unfor- 

 tunately the figure accompanying the note is very poor and, fur- 

 ther, is inserted wrong side upwards. Moreover, the egg-cases 

 obtained by one of us differ in certain important characters from 

 those described from Madras. We have, therefore, thought it ad- 

 visable to give a detailed descriptive account, and a good diagram 

 of the egg-case of this fish. Through the courtesy of Dr. N. Annan- 

 dale, Director, Zoological Survey of India, we were able to com- 

 pare our specimens with otie of the .Madras specimens, now in the 

 collection of the Zoological Survey of India (Indian Museum, 

 Calcutta). 



A few words regarding the nomenclature of the Indian 

 species of the genus Chiloscyllium would not be out of place here. 

 Day in his "Fishes of India," p. 726, pi. clxxxviii, fig. 3 ( 1878 ), 

 andlater in his '' Fauna of British India, Fishes," Vol. i, pp. 34-35, 

 fig. 14 (1889), recognized only a single species, viz. C. indicum 

 (Gmel.), with C. griseum, Miill. and Henle and C. plagiosum 

 (Bennet) as synonyms. Tate Regan in his revision of the dog- 

 fishes ^ came to the conclusion that the three species are quite dis- 

 tinct. The same view was further confirmed by Garnian * and has 

 also been found by us to be quite sound. Sundara Raj in his paper 

 describes the egg-cases as haXongmg to C. griseum = C. indicum oi 

 the "Fauna" not saying, however, that the two are distinct 

 species. We are indebted to Dr. B. L. Chaudhuri, Assistant 

 Superintendent, Zoological Survey of India, for the confirmation of 

 the identification and for help in working out the synonymy of the 

 species. 



The two egg-cases on which the following description is based 

 were obtained in the Gangetic Delta at Port Canning, Bengal, in 

 March 1918, from a gravid female. Each oviduct contained a 



' Proc. Zool. Soc. London, igoS, pp. ^47-364, pis. xi-xiii. 

 •2 Mem. Mns. Comp. Zool. Harvard, XXXV'I, p. 66 (1913). 



