[ 117 ] 



year round on some portion of our coast, consequently the appoint- 

 ment of a uniform close time would simply be inoperative and 

 impossible. 



The opinion of Aristotle, that the time of incubation of 

 the eggs of the octopus extended to a period of fifty days, 

 had been completely confirmed. Eggs, too, of the cuttle and squid 

 had also been hatched out in the Aquarium ; events had also proved 

 that an often expressed opinion of Mr. H. Lee was correct, that the 

 octopus did not incubate her eggs in the same sense in which a fowl 

 hatched her chickens, but that her constant attention was for the 

 purpose of protecting them from injury and from vegetable and 

 animal parasites. This Mr. Lee demonstrated by removing some 

 of her eggs and succeeding in hatching them out away from the 

 cai'e of the mother. 



He must at this point record another triumph of Mr. H. Lee's 

 ingenuity. He had often found the eggs of dog-fish attached to 

 Gorgonias by the parent, and hit upon the device of imitating the 

 appearance of gorgonias by fixing birch-broom twigs to stones at 

 the bottom of the tanks, and then had the very great satisfaction of 

 seeing the female attach the eggs. This operation entirely set at 

 rest two questions maintained even up to the week preceding the 

 observation, viz. — first, that the eggs were fastened by "some 

 inherent vitality in the tendrils," like those of the vine; or secondly, 

 as Mr. F. Buckland supposed, that she fastened them with her 

 mouth and nose. The time, too, which elapsed between the deposit 

 of the eggs and the hatching out had been established, viz. six 

 months ; moreover, the fish hatched out in the Brighton Aquarium 

 were alive by hundi-eds, and in a very flourishing condition. 



It had been found, by Mr. Lee's observations on the eggs of 

 the skate, that they differed essentially from those of the dog-fishes, 

 in that they had a fibrous matter which issued from the body of the 

 parent in a glutinous condition, and in this state attached itself to 

 stones, shells, oi- other substances on which the parent might be 

 lying, and was thus weighted down, instead of being attached 

 by tendrils which were not glutinous when they issued. The 

 arrangement of the glutinous fibi-es varied considerably in diff'ereut 

 species of the Baiidoe. 



