HABITS AND LIFE HISTORY OF THE TOADFISH. IO77 



Miss Cornelia Clapp.in 1 891, published an interesting paper entitled "Some 

 Points in the Development of the Toadfish {Bairachus tau)." In this she 

 figures segmenting blastoderms, illustrates and describes the closure of the 

 blastopore and its relation to the forming embryo, and discusses the relation 

 of the axis of the embryo to the first cleavage plane. She also briefly refers to 

 the nesting habits. 



Five years later Miss Clapp presented as a dissertation for the doctor's 

 degree at the University of Chicago a paper entitled "The Lateral Line System 

 of Bairachus tau," which was published in the Journal of Morphology, volume 

 XV, 1899 This contained figures of early larvs and gave an excellent descrip- 

 tion of the fish and of its nesting habits. In the same year and in the same 

 journal one of Miss Clapp's students, Miss Wallace, published a short but valu- 

 able article on " The Germ Ring in the Egg of the Toadfish," reviewing and 

 extending Miss Clapp's work. A third paper on the embryology of this fish 

 appeared the same year. This is a reprint of a lecture delivered by Miss Clapp 

 at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, during the previous sum- 

 mer, on the relation between the first cleavage plane and the axis of the embryo. 

 Those points in all three of these papers which deal with matters pertinent to 

 this research are taken up at length in the other parts of this paper. 



The last article, so far as has come to the writer's knowledge, bearing on 

 the habits and life history of this fish is Doctor Gill's (1907) "Life Histories of 

 Toadfishes (Batrachoidids) compared with those of Weevers (Trachinids) and 

 Stargazers (Uranoscopids)." This, as the liberal quotations from it in various 

 parts of this paper show, has been a veritable mine of information to the present 

 writer. 



HABITS AND CHARACTERISTICS. 

 NESTING HABITS. 



Nesting places. — The toadfish in accommodating itself to its environment 

 has developed most interesting habits. The eggs are deposited in nests, which 

 in the writer's observation have been old tin cans, a broken jug, floating boards, 

 rotting logs lying more or less horizontally in the water, stones (ballast thrown 

 overboard) with an exposed under surface, but especially the empty shells of 

 a large fan-shaped lammellibranch {Pinna seminuda) which abound in the 

 sandy shoals around the laboratory at Beaufort. 



Miss Clapp (1899) says that — 



The fish resort in pairs to large stones, especially near low-water mark, and, scoop- 

 ing out a cavity beneath, remain for days in this retreat. 



Again she notes that — 



The toadfish of the Eel Pond near the laboratory [at Woods Hole] seem to prefer 

 the debris of civilization to the excavation beneath the rock — for example, tin cans, old 

 boots, broken jugs, etc. 



