270 BASHFORD DEAN. 



At the request of Mr. J. T. Cuuiiiiigliam, well kiiowu for his 

 interest in the study of the Myxinoids, the following paper 

 has been prepared, with a view of presenting in outline the 

 main facts relating to the external development of this re- 

 markable Chordate type. 



The hag-fish finds a natural spawning ground in the Bay of 

 Monterey. Here the spawning appears to take place over a 

 wide area, since eggs have been secured at many and distant 

 points. The embryos in the writer's collection, however, were 

 taken from one particular neighbourhood (about a mile off 

 shore, in twelve fathoms of water, sp. gr. 1*020, temp. 50° — 60° 

 F.), which represented doubtless a favorable spawning ground. 

 About one fifth of the eggs here collected were found to yield 

 embryos, while eggs from other regions rarely contained them, 

 the worthless eggs averaging nearly 98 per cent. In view of 

 the present method of collecting, success in obtaining embryos 

 is to a large degree a matter of accident; for the eggs can* 

 very rarely be dredged, probably because they have been 

 deposited among rock fragments or deep in the mud, as Plate 

 suggests.^ It is upon trawl-line fishing, as Price has noted, 

 that the collector must finally depend. By this means many 

 scores and even hundreds of hag-fishes may be caught during 

 a day's fishing; but among these there will only rarely be one 

 which has entrapped an egg- string in its encasing slime. 

 Such an instance is shown in the accompanying figure (fig. 1), 

 from a water-colour sketch by the writer. The hag, reddish 

 purple in colour, has twisted itself into a knot around the 

 trawl-line; the slime mass enclosing it is translucent, whitish, 

 here and there blood-stained ; the eggs are tangled securely 

 in the meshes of the slime, suggesting a string of yellow beans. 

 The eggs, as has often been noted, are fastened together at 

 either end by clumps of wiry filaments, whose tips interlock. 

 The tips, shown in fig. 2, vary notably in size and form (con- 



1 "Ueber die Eier von Bdellostoma Eischoffii, Schneider," 'Sitzungs- 

 bericliten der Gesellschaft natuiTorschender Freunde zu Berlin,' Jahrg. 

 1896, No. 1, S. 17—21. 



The writer's material was collected almost entirely from rocky bottom. 



