278 BA8HF0RD DEAN. ' 



commouly practised off the mouth of the Firth of Forth, and 

 elsewhere aloug the east coasts of Scotland and England, 

 although eggs of Myxine have never been obtained by that 

 method. Some years ago I made strenuous endeavours to 

 obtain fertilised eggs of Myxine, and received grants from 

 the Royal Society to defray the expenses of the investigation. 

 I frequently made excursions on fishing-boats engaged in fish- 

 ing for haddocks with long lines, which the Americans call 

 trawl-lines. On these lines large numbers of Myxine were 

 always taken on the hooks, just as in the fishing described in 

 the Bay of Monterey. But no extruded or fertilised eggs 

 were ever seen by me entangled in the slime of the Myxine. 

 The only explanation of this which seems possible is that off 

 the English coast the fishing-lines have not been shot on a 

 ground where Myxine spawn, all endeavours to obtain the 

 eggs from the lines or from the fishermen having hitherto 

 failed. I cannot agree with Mr. Bashford Dean in his re- 

 marks on the mode of ovipositiou. The sheathing capsules to 

 which he refers as enclosing the spawned eggs observed by a 

 fisherman must be, I think, the follicular capsules belonging 

 to the ovary, in which the eggs are developed. I have fre- 

 quently seen the eggs of Myxine enclosed in these capsules 

 pressed from the fish, but I showed in my paper on the gene- 

 rative organs that the eggs normally escaped from the ovary 

 by the rupture of these capsules, and the separation of the 

 capsules without rupture is due to some violence or pressure 

 in the capture or handling of the female. In Myxine it is 

 certain that the eggs when extruded are enclosed only in the 

 egg membrane provided with threads at the poles, this mem- 

 brane being of the nature of a chorion produced in the folli- 

 cular capsule. It is probable that in this respect the eggs of 

 Bdellostoma Stouti are quite similar to those of Myxine 

 glutinosa. 



