450 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol. xxix. 



not so numerous as they are larg-e." In Book V, chapter 9, he says 

 '"'' Belone breeds in winter.""' 



Plin}^ the Elder, in the hrst eentiny A. I), in his Natural History. 

 Book IX, chapter 26, simply repeats Aristotle and does not seem to 

 have made any personal observations. 



Not so, however, Claudius Aelianus, a Roman of about 200 A. D., 

 whose book On the Nature of Animals was written in Greek. In Book 

 IX, section 60, he writes: "Since the 8ea Belone are small and have 

 the uterus unfit for holding- their offspring-, they do not bear the 

 increase of the fetuses within, but burst, and in this way do not pro- 

 duce but throw out their young." He seems, however, to have been 

 acquainted with Aristotle's writings. 



For nearly fourteen hundred years no further references are to 

 be found. There is a blank until 1554:, when Rondelet published his 

 epoch-making " De Piscibus Marinis." In Book VIH he describes 

 the long slit which progresses backward from the anus and in which 

 the eggs are placed. He says Sy^ignathus acus casts the eggs into this 

 slit and keeps them there for some time, and he declares that he saw 

 excluded from the pouch, which is formed on the female, many fetuses 

 with perfect parts. He testifies that, after exclusion of the fetuses, 

 the edges of the slit coalesce. Couch quotes him that three separate 

 deposits *of eggs were made in one pouch, and that this took place in 

 early winter, and that these eggs were unequally developed, some 

 nearly ready for hatching and others barely showing eyes and snout — 

 but this has not been verified. Rondelet studied the fishes alive in the 

 water and his observations are very accurate, barring the one error as 

 to the sex of the pouch-bearing fish. This error, however, was per- 

 petuated for nearly three hundred years and was onl}" overthrown 

 after a controversy which lasted from 1831 to 1872. 



Conrad Gessner, whose great Thierbuch was published in Zurich in 

 1563, describes the slit which the female bears, and says that it is filled 

 with eggs in the winter. This is evidently an echo of Rondelet. 

 Aldrovandi (1613), however, is more explicit as to the structure of the 

 pouch, for he says it is made of a fold of skin on each side so that the 

 helly can be distended when the fish is pregnant. 



Artedi (1T38) says that the females are easily known from the males 

 by the large oblong sac, which extends ])ehind the anus to the dimin- 

 ishing part of the tail, and in which many ova are held. He thinks 

 the pipefishes are viviparous, since fetuses are found in the pouch alive. 

 Evidently he deems this pouch an internal structui-e. 



Pallas, in 1767, speaks of finding ova protruding from the longitudi- 

 nal slit on the ))elly of the mother, and Avonders if the male has a simi- 

 lar sac. He does not understand how the sperms are transferred, 

 wonders if sperms are used to fecundate the eggs, and, since he finds 



