22 EEPRODUOTION AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONGER. 



differences by which male congers could be distinguished from 

 females of the same size, although I had found that all the large 

 specimens (8 feet long and upwards) were females. I took out this 

 specimen, intending to kill it and examine its generative organs, but 

 before killing it I held it alive in a cloth and gently squeezed its 

 abdomen towards the generative aperture. Thick fluid white milt 

 immediately exuded from the aperture, and when I examined a little 

 of this milt under the microscope, I found it swai-ming with innumer- 

 able ripe spermatozoa in most active motion. As the specimen was 

 not in the least injured by the squeezing, I placed it in a tank by 

 itself and kept it alive for further observation. It was 45 cm. (18 

 inches) long. 



Two days afterwards I found a small conger dead in another 

 tank. This also proved to be a ripe male; its length was 51 cm. 

 (20 inches). From the front of the eye to the end of the 

 snout measui-ed 19 mm., the breadth between the eyes 17 mm. 

 The testis was 14 mm. wide (f inch) and in colour milk-white. 



On December 19th eight conger were caught for me near the 

 mouth of Plymouth Sound, with hook and line. They seemed to 

 me to be too large for males, and I concluded they were young 

 females. However I kept them alive ; there was one, the smallest, 

 about which I was doubtful, thinking it might be a male. The 

 next day I squeezed this specimen, but could get no milt from it. 

 At this time I was not experienced in detecting the peculiarities of 

 the male in unripe specimens. This specimen when killed and opened 

 proved to be a male with large well-developed almost ripe testes. 

 The specimen was 19^ inches long (48 cm.). A piece of the testis 

 examined under the microscope showed no ripe spermatozoa. 



1 then opened another of the specimens caught on the 19th, I 

 was confident that this one was female, but it proved to be a male 

 with fully-developed but not ripe testes. A few ripe spermatozoa 

 were found on teasing up a portion of the testis. This was the 

 largest male I had yet seen, it was 2 feet 2 inches in length {Q6 cm.). 

 The testis on the left side was 3 cm. wide (from attachment to edge). 

 I pressed ripe milt with my finger, after the abdominal cavity was 

 laid open, into the vas deferens at the base of the testis, and thence 

 along the transverse duct behind the rectum to the exterior. 



These two males were not darker on the back and sides than a 

 female 2 feet 3 inches long, with which I compared them ; in fact both 

 of them were piebald, some parts of the skin being quite light, others 

 dark. But there was a difference in the colour of the ventral sur- 

 face, which in the female was pure white, entirely without pigment, 

 and in the male was clouded to a considerable degree with black 

 pigment cells. The prominence of the eyes previously described in 



