1898.] PLANKTON OF THE FAEROE CHANNEL. 563 



Iceland forms show a certain resemblance to the genera Paralept* 

 and Sudis. Paralepis borealis is known from Greenland, Iceland, 

 and the North-American coast. Apart from other differences, the 

 excessive number of anal rays and the large size of the teeth (vide 

 Groode & Bean, Ocean. Ichth. p. 119, fig. 148) serve to separate 

 it from the forms before us. P. coregonoides has occurred in the 

 Mediterranean and on the American Atlantic coast, and may well 

 exist in Boreal European waters. It appears to agree better than 

 the last with the Iceland forms, but has the generic character of 

 very large teeth. P. sphyrcenoides, from the Mediterranean and 

 Madeira, has 30 anal rays. I cannot ascertain the vertebral 

 formula of any of these species. Under the name of Sudis 

 atlanlicus Smitt gives a brief account, derived from Krb'yer, of 

 a fish washed ashore at the Skaw. It had 20 anal rays, and so 

 far as I can judge its young stage might bear some resemblance to 

 the Iceland specimens. The balance of probability,' however, 

 appears to me to favour the association of the latter with Mallotus 

 villosus x , although, so far as I know, the Capelin has never been 

 recorded from Iceland. 



The smallest Iceland specimens bear a considerable resemblance 

 to the largest of Dr. Fowler's larvsB. In the latter (fig. 8) the 

 snout is obtuse aad rounded except at the extremity. In the 

 former (fig. 9) the snout is more pointed, but still somewhat 

 rounded superiorly. A depression behind the eyes indicates the 

 collapse of a sinus over the hind-brain, such as seems to have been 

 also present in the Faeroe larvae. The specimen 36 mm. long has 

 the greatest height of the body only 2*5 mm. ; the form being thus 

 extremely elongate. The gradual increase in height is illustrated 

 in figs. 10 and 11. 



Most of the Iceland forms have only a few chromatophores 

 scattered along the ventral surface, but one, about 42 mm., has a 

 number rather widely diffused over the general surface of the head 

 and body. How far the generally unpigmented condition is 

 natural I cannot say. 



A size-interval of 11*5 mm. separates the largest of the Faeroe 

 larvae from the smallest of the Iceland series. Since in the former 

 the isolated vspots of the ventrurn appear to be in process of 

 reduction, their absence in the latter is not necessarily a bar to 

 the association of two series. The Faeroe larva? have certainly a 

 a smaller eye than the Iceland forms, but we have evidence of a 

 developmental increase in the size of this organ in Scopelus which 

 may well be repeated in other fishes of similar environment. In 

 the Iceland series the proportions of the eye are variable ; but in 

 the larger and more perfect examples an increase is associated 



1 Dr. Gunther considers that a number of larval forms, corresponding to 

 Kichardson's genus Prymnothonus (vide Chall. Rep., Zool. xxxi. Pelag. Fish. p. 39, 

 pi. v.), " represent larval conditions of fishes belonging to Paralepis or Siidis or 

 of genera allied to them." T venture to suggest that in the genera named the 

 abdomen will be found to be much more elongate, from the earliest stages, than 

 in Prymnothonus. 



