HABITS AND LIFE HISTORY OF THE TOADFISH. 1083 



Miss Clapp falls into error, however, in the first of the two papers to which 

 reference is made where, in the passage above quoted, she states that "it 

 is only after the young toadfish are hatched that the heads of the whole 

 brood are turned in the same direction." During the larval period the yolk 

 sac is attached to the inside of the egg membrane, and the possibility is sug- 

 gested that the turning toward the light is effected at the time of hatching, 

 when, according to Doctor Ryder, the attachment of the yolk sac may take 

 place. In the second of the two papers above noted. Miss Clapp herself records 

 the fact that the egg becomes attached at once to the egg membrane, hence 

 such rotation is an impossibility. 



Care of the nests. — When the place for the nest has been chosen and prop- 

 erly cleaned and the eggs laid and fertilized, the female departs, leaving to the 

 male the sole care of the eggs and future young. 



Storer (1855), quoting Ayres, says that it is the female which guards the 

 nest. His statement is: 



That this is, in all cases, the mother of the young ones, and that she is there for the 

 purpose of guarding them, we have no means of determining; we can only infer it. 



On reading this one is led to wonder why he did not take a pair of scissors 

 and by dissection ascertain the sex. Ryder (1886 and 1887), however, declares 

 that— 



It is the male which assumes the care of the brood, and seems [italics mine] to 

 remain in the vicinity until the young fish are hatched out and set free. 



Miss Clapp (1899) confirms Ryder, and the writer can testify from scores 

 of dissections that the guardian fish is always and only the male. 



For the next few weeks the male gives himself up wholly, so far as the 

 writer has been able to ascertain, to this parental duty. He leaves the nest, 

 if at all, only to feed; and the strong probability is that he never absents him- 

 self during the period of incubation, getting the small amount of food necessary 

 during this self-enforced period of inactivity by snapping up unwary minnows 

 and crabs passing his retreat. In support of these conclusions the following 

 facts are adduced: 



While the males caught in the traps (to be described later) or found free 

 in the water were always fat and well fed, those from nests, with the marked 

 exception of one lot from a particular spot to which special attention will be 

 called further on, while never emaciated nor showing signs of starvation, were 

 not so well fed as the others. So much as to feeding while guarding nests. 

 With regard to their not leaving the nests, the writer can affirm that he has 

 never yet found a nest with eggs without a guarding male. The fish ordinarily 

 resist being evicted from empty shells, but if the shells are occupied as nests 

 with eggs, then the fish have literally to be driven out. The following incident 



