16 



On the Reproduction and Development of the Conger. 



By 



J. T. Cunniiighaiu, M.A.« 



Naturalist to the Association. 



I. Revieiv of -previous Observations on Sexually Mature Conger. 



Befoee the Laboratory of the Association was built^ it had often 

 been observed in other aquaria that female conger after living for 

 some time in captivity, feeding regularly and voraciously, and 

 growing with considerable rapidity, passed into a swollen and 

 apparently gravid condition and then died. Such conger when 

 dissected after death were invariably found to contain enormously 

 developed ovaries or roes, which entirely filled up and distended 

 the abdominal cavity, and pressed the intestine and other abdominal 

 organs into as small a space as possible. The following are the 

 principal records of cases in which this has been observed. 



R. Schmidtlein* gives an account of the occurrence in the aqua- 

 rium of the Zoological Station of Naples in a paper published in 

 1879. He writes, " All that we can say concerning the reproduction 

 of the conger, is that sometimes the body of large specimens became 

 considerably swollen as though distended with gas, and these speci- 

 mens hung for some days at the surface of the water on their sides, 

 without eating and without the power of swimming, and then died. 

 When opened, the abdominal cavity was found filled, almost to 

 bursting, with colossal masses of eggs, and all the organs were com- 

 pressed and reduced to a minimum. In some of these specimens 

 some small masses of eggs were extruded even during life, but the 

 deposition of large numbers of eggs never occurred. All died 

 from the presence of the excessive numbers of eggs which from 

 causes difficult to understand could not be expelled from the body.'' 

 In a tablet published the same year, the same author states that 



* BeoiacMungen uber die Lebenstveise einiger Seethiere innerhalb der Aquarien der 

 Zoologischen Station, Mittheil. aus der Zoolog. Station zu Neapel., Band i, 1879, p. 492. 



t Beobachtungen ilber Trdchtigkeits- und Eiablage-perioden verschiedener Seethiere, 

 Mitt. Zoolog. Stat. Neapel., Band i, 1879, p. 135. 



