IV EGGS AND LARVyE AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT 89 



free and float in the sea. In the perch family, among the spiny- 

 finned fishes, the fresh-water perch attaches its adhesive eggs 

 to fresh-water plants, while the bass [Labrax lupus) and other 

 marine forms produce floating eggs. The commoner fishes 

 whose adhesive spawn is deposited near the sea shore are the 

 gobies, the blennies, the suckers, and the shallow-water Cottidae, 

 commonly called sea-scorpions or hard-heads. The eggs of the 

 common blenny or shanny are attached in a single layer to the 

 surface of rocks. Those of another species which were examined 

 at the Plymouth Laboratory were attached to the sides of the 

 empty marrow-cavity of an old beef-bone. The eggs of the 



Fig. 40. — Egg of the Sea-snail {Liparis) as seen when alive and magnified. 



gunnel, another member of the blenny family, form a round mass 

 which is not fixed, but lies free on the ground. The cat-fish or 

 wolf-fish is the largest fish of the same family, being usually two 

 or three feet in length and sometimes reaching six feet. Its eggs 

 were discovered by Prof Mcintosh to be large and fastened to- 

 gether into a mass of considerable size lying on the sea-bottom. 

 The eggs of the two species of Coitus, the sea-scorpion and the 

 father-lasher, so well known for their large round heads, armed 

 with strong spines behind, form small roundish masses attached 

 to stones, rocks, &c., between tide marks. 



The eggs of the lump-sucker are large, and deposited in 

 irregular masses of considerable size not far from low-water 



