The Ovary of Felichthys Felis, the Gaff-topsail Catfish. 125 
“Figure 6 [reproduced herein as text-figure 1] shows the ovary of the 
female in natural size [75 mm. long and 44 mm. wide] with the left side partly 
cut open lengthwise in order to show the already developed large and also 
the unripe [small] eggs hanging to its walls. This ovary contains 12 to 14 
ripe eggs, the largest of 5 lines in diameter, and these like the others, witha 
small pedicel like an umbilical cord, sit fast on the wall of the ovary and the 
[thin] yolk skin or sac allows no trace of any embryo to be seen through it: 
This remarkable difference in the size of the egg at one and the same time and 
in the same ovary causes one to conjecture that viviparity is not practiced 
by this fish.” 
Of Bagrus mesops and Arius quadriscutis, Kner says that their 
ovarian structures are identical with those of Arius luniscutis; while of 
Galeichthys gronovit he notes that the ovaries are like those in Arius, 
and adds that they are made of 2 thick- 
walled sacs which are confluent behind 
into a wide oviduct opening out between 
the anal and urethral orifices. Cetopsis 
goboides has the long, closed ovarian sacs 
united along their whole dorsal surfaces 
by folds of skin to the middle line of the 
body. At the approach of the breeding 
season the large eggs cause the ovary to 
reach forward fully half the length of the 
body-cavity, but on the other hand at its 
breeding season the ovaries of Pimelodus 
sebe occupy the whole length of the 
body-cavity. P. bufonius also has large 
egg-sacs and P. laticaudus at breeding 
time has a markedly turgid urinogenital 
papilla. 
Kner examined the ovaries of two 
species of Auchenipterus. Of these, A. 
ceratophysus probably was not taken at qyyemcure 1.—Ovary of Arius lu- 
breeding season, since the ovary occupied _niscutis, after Kner, 1858. With the 
about half the body-cavity, but of A. exception of those given herein for 
Felichthys felis, this is the only 
nodosus he Says: known figure of the ovary of acatfish. 
“The ovaries of the females occupy at the laying season the belly cavity 
clear to the base of the pectoral fins, are nearly cylindrical, are bound to- 
gether at their fore ends by a membrane and open out behind into a very 
wide oviduct.” 
Finally Kner says of Centromochlus aulopygius, Ageniosus militaris, 
A. brevifilis, and Hypothalmus fimbriatus that they show no remarkable 
ovarian development, this being probably due to the fact that they 
were not taken at the breeding season. 
The next reference is to Peter Bleeker (1858) and is merely incidental. 
In describing Arius arius, of the Indian Archipelago, he says that 
