26 REPEODUOTION AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONGER. 



restless, but seemed to take a good deal of notice of the females, 

 frequently smelling at tlieir genital apertures. The females rested 

 on the gravel at the bottom of the tank, and constantly swayed from 

 side to side so as to press the abdomen and genital aperture on the 

 gravel. The smaller of the two females rested for days with its 

 head in one of the corners of the tank, and one of the males for 

 some days remained almost constantly' by her side, his snout level 

 with hers, his body in the angle between her body and the gravel, 

 on her left side. While he was in this position I frequently noticed 

 a rapid quivering vibration pass along his longitudinal fins, a motion 

 quite different from that of the same fins when used in swimming 

 or in hovering, and only suggestive of sexual excitement. I drove 

 this male away once or twice with a stick, but after one or two di- 

 gressions he invariably returned slowly to his former position beside 

 the female. Sometimes the female made an excursion up and down 

 the tank, and the male followed her. At other times the male 

 would move away of his own accoi'd, but after a short time would 

 return to his former post beside the female. 



While I was absent from the Laboratory in February, through 

 illness, one of the males was taken out dead ; it was exceedingly 

 ripe, and was probably the one I saw with the female, for after this 

 I saw no such constant association between a male and female. 



On March 23rd I took out this smaller female and very carefully 

 squeezed her abdomen ; mucus and blood escaped from the genital 

 aperture together with one free ovum. The ovum was, in all respects, 

 similar to those obtained from the female that died in 1889. The 

 escape of blood showed that the ovary was ruptured, although the 

 squeezing had been performed very gently ; probably, I think, the 

 rupture had taken place before the squeezing. Next day this female 

 was seen to be writhing about and lying on her side. Not long 

 afterwards she was found to be dead. I squeezed her after death 

 and obtained a number of free ova and small pieces of the ovary 

 consisting of eggs fastened together by the scanty ovarian tissue. 

 I placed these eggs in sea-water with some ripe milt from a male, 

 and then kept them in a circulation of sea-water for some days. 

 But though a perivitelline space was formed as before, I never 

 saw any signs of the formation of a blastodisc or of segmentation. 



The results of a post-mortem examination were as follows : — The 

 ovaries together weighed 3 lbs. 4^ oz. The stomach was quite empty, 

 its walls very thin, and containing numerous coiled-up parasitic 

 nematodes or thread-worms. The intestine was very thin, containing 

 only yellow mucus ; the stomach and intestines were compressed 

 into the smallest possible space by the enlarged ovaries. All the 

 viscera, including liver and spleen, without the ovaries, weighed 8 oz. 



