PARENTAL CARE AMONG FRESH- WATER FISHES. 519 



are of a deep blue color. These are deposited by the female in a 

 slight excavation which she makes among reeds and bulrushes. 

 About 200 is the ordinary complement of a good-sized fish. After 

 she has laid her eggs the female appears exhausted, and remains 

 almost motionless at a short distance from the deposit. The male, 

 on the contrary, appears to be much agitated, hovers around the eggs, 

 swims without cessation above them, and probably fecundates them 

 at this time. Some minutes later he takes the eggs, one after an- 

 other, into his mouth and keeps them inside his cheeks, which be- 

 come notably swollen and distorted outside. Some of the eggs, how- 

 ever, pass backward between the branchial arches and find a resting 

 place there. These eggs, though not restrained by any membrane 

 nor by any glairy or sticky matter whatever, remain in place within 

 the mouth. The parent never loses them when in the water, and it is 

 only when he is caught and thrown on the sand that the eggs fall out 

 in consequence of his spasmodic efforts to breathe. Some, however, 

 still remain in the mouth. 



A SOUTH AFRICAN MALE OVIGEROUS CICHLID. 



The most complete observations of the actions of the male guardian 

 of the eggs and the care of the eggs as well as young were made by 

 another naturalist, N. Abraham, in 1901. The" species whose actions 

 Abraham describes was one abundant in Natal, Avhere he lived, and 

 has been named Tilapia philander. 



In the month of November of 1900 I visited a jiond in tlie neighbonrhood of 

 Durban and received several ohromides (Tilapia). I introduced them into a 

 tank prepared for them and kept careful watch. I at once noticed that one of 



mouth was from that fact assumed to be a male; evidently dissection was not 

 resorted to. 



The article by Mr. Abraham was sent to Doctor Giinther and by him contrib- 

 uted to the Annals and Magazine of Natural History (VIII, 321-32.5). Doctor 

 Giinther. in his introductory remarks, stated that " one of the specimens sent 

 [to himj is the individual which Mr. Abraham had under observation for some 

 weeks, and is a male." Doctor Boulenger, however, after examination of the 

 same individual, and of "a further series of Tilaiiia philander, together with 

 some T. nalalcnsis. which he had received from tiie Rev. N. Abraham, several 

 of which have eggs in the mouth, as well as in the genital glands, found all 

 the egg carriers to be females. Doctor (Jiiuther nnist, therefore, have assumed 

 the egg caiTier determined by him to have been a male from general principles, 

 and not after dissection. (See Boulenger, T. Z. S., xvii, pp. 538, 530, Oct., 

 1906.) In accordance with Boulenger's determination, wherever the words 

 "he" and "his" occur in the annals "she" and "her" are substituted in the 

 present article. Boulenger aptly remarks that it " remains unproved whether 

 in any of the African or Syrian cichlids the 'buccal incubation.* as it has been 

 called by Doctor Pellegriu. devolves on the male: the instances previously 

 adduced being either controverted or unsur)ported by the only reliable evidence, 

 an examination of the genital glands." 



