NOTES ON TELEOSTEAN OVA AND LARVAE. 19 



I have not found among my young-fish trawl collections this year 

 any post-larval stages which I can with certainty ascribe to this 

 species. 



Solea variegata (Donov). Thickback. 



Cdxningham (4a), p. 23, Fig. 15. 

 (4b), p. 90 ; PI. XYI, Fig. 6 ; PI. XVII, Figs. I and 2. 

 Holt (lid), p. 137. 



This is the species of Solea which yielded the greatest total of eggs 

 in our samples, fifteen altogether being taken for the season. Con- 

 sidering the relative abundance of the parent fish, previous records for 

 Plymouth are surprisingly meagre. Cunningham first obtained a 

 pelagic egg of 1"36 mm. diameter in July, which he identified chiefly 

 by comparison with the ovarian egg from a ripe female taken the 

 previous May. In his treatise on the Common Sole, 1890, he figures 

 the newly hatched and two days' old larva, the former being 2*42 mm. 

 in length. He describes the eggs as measuring 1-28 to 1"36 mm. in 

 diameter, and therefore smaller than those of the common sole. It 

 may here be mentioned that there seems to be no evidence for 

 Ehrenbaum's statement (5b, p. 143) that it is larger than that of 

 S. vulgaris, at least as regards the Channel specimens of the latter 

 species (cf. 7, p. 23), although observations in the North Sea (where 

 S. variegata does not occur) have given a smaller diameter for the eggs 

 of the common sole. Holt {op. cit.) records a single egg of I'll mm. 

 diameter, taken in the Hand Deeps in July, which died before being 

 completely examined; and Balfour Browne (2, p. 615) mentions the 

 taking of one in the West Channel on 21st April, the diameter of 

 which was 1'44 mm. 



My earliest specimens (eight in number) were taken by tow-nets 

 7 miles south-west of the Eddystone on the 8th of April, but I 

 was not able to examine them carefully until a day or two later, wdien 

 most of them had hatched out. One of the eggs had a diameter of 

 1*30 mm. The yolk showed a superficial segmented layer and con- 

 tained about forty oil-globules, more or less uniformly distributed 

 below its surface. The embryo had developed a free caudal rudiment 

 of moderate length. There were many round pale yellow or straw- 

 coloured chromatophores and fewer small black ones on the body of 

 the embyro and on the yolk-sac. The length of a larva, measured 

 about one day, or possibly slightly more, after hatching, was 3"17 mm., 

 from the snout to the posterior edge of the yolk-sac being 1*5 mm. 



Three other eggs taken with the young-fish trawl in the Sound on 

 the 3rd May were able to receive more attention. Their diameters 



