138 Dragonety Size, Food, Dress, &c. 



them. Nigh 40 of these were kept for examination, but 

 this was only a tithe of the lot. Authorities do not regard 

 them as gregarious, though in this instance the assembly 

 was large.* The sexes are deemed to be in proportion of 

 one male to three females ; in our series there were 16 

 males to 21 females. The extremes of the sizes were 3|-8| 

 inches, though they grow to a foot long. Their food con- 

 sisted of worms, shell-fish (mussels, &c.), Crustacea (shrimps, 

 crabs and Idotea), one with fish remains and others hydroids. 

 The older males when in full dress are most remark- 

 ably gorgeous in appearance orange, red, lilac and blue 

 standing out in various stripes and spots, and a couple of 

 the rays of the front back fin are of great length. The 

 females, on the contrary, are rusty dull colour with short 

 back fin. Add to this their sharp-nosed, broad, flat head 

 and fore body, and their local name of " fox " is applicable. 

 Their eggs float, thus differing from the gobies' adhesive 

 ones. They are, moreover, quite peculiar in possessing an 

 outside network egg-membrane. Mclntosh assigns May to 

 August as their chief spawning season in Scotland, while 

 Holt found spent females in April on the west coast of 

 Ireland, though their floating eggs were got from March 

 to Junef ; but we were only fortunate in noting one with 

 ripe spawn on 10th September below Southend Pier. They 

 are not ordinarily used as food, though the flesh is well 

 flavoured, hence, like the gobies, they alone serve as the 

 prey of cod, whiting and other edible fish. 



The Sucker Family (Discoboli} are fairly plentiful in our 

 area, but have no mercantile value. They are of northern habit. 

 The three British species are all with us. (1) The LUMP- FISH 

 or LUMP-SUCKER (Cyclopterus lumpus) is the most pronounced 

 member of the trio. We have not tracked the adult's movements 



* As in Humber estuary, and W.C. Ireland, hauls, see Holt and Caldemvood, Sci. 

 Trans. Roy. Dubl. Soc., Sept., 1895, p. 424. 



t Survey Fishing Grounds W.C. Ireland, in Rev. W. S. Green's Rep. to Council 

 Roy. Dub. Soc., 1891. Append. C. 



