266 The Unit!/ of the Organism 



ing period is concerned. Each male begins his attentions 

 while his fiancee, so to speak, is heavily gravid from the pre- 

 vious mating (when and how accomplished we unfortunately 

 know nothing about beyond the fact that it must have been 

 before the individuals under observation were brought to 

 the aquarium from the sea, about six weeks before the mat- 

 ing began.) 



In the case of one pair, the amours of the male continued 

 more than two weeks, the first few days of which were 

 before the family of young began to be born, the period of 

 parturition extending over three days. Although there 

 was no indication on the part of the other males of inten- 

 tions or even desires toward the spouse (as she may now 

 be called) of this male, he was quite pugnacious, directing his 

 seemingly unnecessary operations against the other females 

 as well as against the other males. It should be said, how- 

 ever, that his antipathies were considerably greater against 

 the males than against the other females. The other two 

 males took partners after much the same fashion ; but since 

 both of these were somewhat smaller, and fully acknowl- 

 edged the over-lordship of the one singled out in our account, 

 their performances were less clear cut. 



Specially noteworthy is the character of the amours of 

 the male, which alone or almost alone, seems to take an in- 

 terest in the performance. No contact, or at least only the 

 slightest, of the male with the female was seen though the 

 fish were under observation much of the time. A peculiar 

 downward darting of the male first on one side then on the 

 other of the female, close to her but not quite touching her, 

 was one of the favorite manoeuvers. But various rapid 

 circlings about, up and down, head-on and tail-on, over and 

 under, and in nearly all possible ways, may be witnessed. 



The full meaning of this monogamic (temporarily so, at 

 least), largely non-tactual type of mating we do not know 

 partly because we have not yet all the facts ; but I suspect 



