112 THE STORY OF FISH LIFE. 



the beaches of our shores, and are known as 

 "mermaid's pinboxes." They may be likened to 

 padded stretchers, being oblong in form, with the 

 corners produced into four short handles. Some- 

 times these will, if opened, be found to contain a 

 young skate comfortably stowed away inside. 

 The eggs of the dog-fishes resemble those of the 

 skate, but the four handle-like processes are 

 much longer, and serve as anchors by twisting 

 round sea-weed. The egg of the Port Jackson 

 shark, Cestracion, is quite remarkable, being 

 cone-shaped, and encircled with a broad spirally- 

 twisted fold running the whole length of the egg. 

 The egg of the chimera (Callorhynchus), an ally 

 of the sharks, is perhaps the only egg with a 

 mimetic resemblance to foreign an object. It is 

 elliptical in form, ajid bordered by a fringe, so as 

 to give a close resemblance to a piece of sea-weed. 



Amongst the more highly specialised bony 

 fishes, the dominant forms of the present day, 

 the eggs may either be enclosed within a horny 

 capsule, as in the sharks — though the form and 

 size of the capsule dififers — or are quite un- 

 protected. 



The blennies afford us an instance where the 

 eggs are enclosed within a horny capsule. This 

 capsule is attached by its base to sea-weed or 

 other fixed object, till the young hatches out. 

 The eggs form little clusters of small, upright, 

 and somewhat pear-shaped bodies. 



Sometimes, as in the case of the fresh-water 

 perch (Perca fluviaUlis), the eggs are invested by 

 a gelatinous envelope of a viscid nature, causing 

 the eggs to stick together in masses. These 



