OCCURRING IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OP PLYMOUTH. 41 



and all sank to the bottom of tlie vessel." The eggs in this 

 experiment were unfei^tilized, no milt was added to them. 



In Day's work, Fishes of Great Britain and Ireland, 1880—1884, 

 it is stated that Mr. Dunn observed that the pilchard appears to 

 breed at two seasons of the year, May and June, and also in 

 December, and the young are first seen in September, three or four 

 inches in length. On January 16th, 1882, Mr. Dunn observed the 

 fish returning to the bays shotten. 



On the 15th October, 1887, in reply to inquiries of mine, I 

 received a courteous letter from Mr. Dunn, in which he said he was 

 certain that some pilchards spawn late in December and early in 

 January, and even up to March, the winter spawning extending thus 

 over some months. He said that in summer some pilchards spawn in 

 May, the majority in June, and others in August, He also said that 

 in some seasons spawn, which he believed to come from the pilchard, 

 was seen floating in immense tracts on the surface of the sea. 



This continuous sheet of spawn mentioned by both Couch and 

 Mr. Dunn, can only be the spawn of Lophius piscatorius, the angler 

 or devil-fish, whose spawn is known to be contained in an extended 

 sheet of gelatinous material. It is fully described by Agassiz and 

 Whitman in their memoir already cited, on the Pelagic Stages of 

 Osseous Fishes. I have not myself met with this spawn of Lophius 

 off the coast of Devon and Cornwall, but as the angler is common 

 enough in the neighbourhood, I have no doubt that it has been seen 

 by fishermen and erroneously identified by Couch and Mr. Dunn as 

 the spawn of the pilchard. 



Meanwhile, before any naturalist had identified ova of the pilchard 

 the eggs of another species of the family Clupeidse, namely, the 

 anchovy, EiigrauHs encrasicholus, were examined and found to be 

 pelagic. This discovery was made by K. F. Wenckebach, of Amster- 

 dam,* and published only in 1887. I have not seen the original 

 paper, but the Italian zoologist Raffaele gives a description, with 

 figures, of the ova of the anchovy and the young stages of the 

 fish, from studies he was able to make upon them at the Zoological 

 Station at Naples. Fortunately, there is no danger of confounding 

 the eggs of the anchovy with those of the pilchard or sprat. The 

 egg of the anchovy, like the others, has the yolk divided into seg- 

 ments, but instead of being spherical like the others it is much 

 elongated, so as to have the shape of a sausage. 



Raffaele gives a description and figures of two other kinds of 

 floating eggs, which, having a segmented yolk, are recognised by 

 him as belonging to species of the herring family ; he obtained these 



* De embri/onnle ontiolkJcellng van de Ansjovis {Evgraulis encrasicholus). Verb. Akad. 

 Aiustei dam. Duel 26, 1887. 



