44 A. E. HEFFORD. 



Clupca inlchardus. Pilchard. 



My first pilchard eggs were taken on 8th April, 7 miles S.W. of 

 the Eddystone, when several occurred in the tow-nettings. The 

 diameter ranged from 1'63 mm. to 1"84 mm., and that of the oil- 

 globule from 0'15 to 0'16 mm. The next specimen (of 1"6 mm. and 

 0145 mm. oil-globule) was found in a young-fish trawl haul taken near 

 the Eddystone on 26th August. More surprising was the occurrence 

 of three eggs in a tow-netting taken inside the Sound on the 14th Sep- 

 tember. These had diameters of 1'46, 1"52, and 1'62 mm., and oil- 

 globules of 0'145, 0155, and 0"14 respectively. A newly hatched larva 

 from one of them, measured after being killed in dilute formalin, had 

 a length of 38 mm. I may also mention that I have found numerous 

 pilchard eggs in samples of plankton taken in the young-fish trawl in 

 September, 1906, on the Rame-Eddystone Grounds. 



As Cunningham (4a, p. 44, and 4d, p. 154) has pointed out, pilchards 

 spawn far out at sea, and it is doubtless due to the fewness of my tow- 

 net samples from the open-sea areas that such a small number of 

 pilchard eggs have come under my observation this season, I may 

 mention in passing that the pilchard fishery season in 1909 has been a 

 decided failure in the Plymouth district as off the Cornish coast, the 

 shoals having kept out in mid-Channel 20 miles or more from the 

 coast, and therefore out of reach of the usual fishing craft. It should 

 be remembered that the great majority of pilchards caught by Ply- 

 mouth drifters are not spawning fish, the usual shoreward movement 

 of this species in summer and early autumn being apparently a feeding 

 migration. It is hardly relevant to the present subject to discuss the 

 possible causes of the unusual distribution in 1909, nor is there com- 

 pletely satisfactory evidence available. We may, however, assume 

 that the distribution of the spaw^ners which appear to lie outside the 

 main summer shoals may show some variation in relation to the move- 

 ments of the latter. My collections certainly sampled only the fringe 

 of the great mass of ova spawned, or those which drifted landward 

 with the tide and currents. 



B. DEMEESAL EGGS. 



Lahrus ? mivtus, L. 



Eggs which in all probability belong to Lahrus mixtus were found 

 deposited among a mass of Chondms crispus in a rock-pool on Wem- 

 bury Eeef on 17th June. The mode of occurrence is very similar to 

 what has been described by Matthews for Lahrus maculatus (17), and 

 my first idea was that this was the species to which the " nest " 



