I084 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 



is typical. A Pinna shell nest, with valves partly open, containing a guarding 

 male, was turned upside down and the fish " poured out " twice. The first time 

 he came out head foremost, but braced his pectorals against the valves so as 

 to be dislodged with difficulty. The second time he appeared tail first, but 

 catching again by his fins and, the shell being partly in the water, swimming 

 with his tail, he actually tried to climb back into the shell. So vigorous is 

 the resistance offered that not infrequently many of the eggs are ruined in get- 

 ting the guardian out. I recall one particularly desirable lot of eggs in early 

 segmentation in which over 50 had been crushed. My negro collector, when 

 asked the cause, gave the explanation above. 



One more illustration is so interesting that it can not be omitted. On one 

 occasion I visited an oyster reef which was about a foot out of water at low tide. 

 On this were many old broken-down piles which had once formed a part of a 

 fish house. Beneath these the fish had excavated retreats, and to the under 

 sides were attached larvae and unhatched eggs. As the tide fell lower and lower 

 the water in the little pools around these "chunks" seeped out through the 

 sand and shells, but in the score of nests examined not a single one had been 

 deserted. In some cases there were no signs of fish, nest, or water until the 

 "chunk" was turned over. At extraordinarily low spring tides the fish must 

 have been left for a short time with practically no more water than enough to 

 moisten the under side of the body, but in no case was a deserted nest found. 

 The writer has never seen a more marked case of devotion to its young on the 

 part of any fish. 



This guardianship, as has been stated, lasts until the young are not only 

 freed from their place of attachment, but are able to fend for themselves. I have 

 not infrequently found nests with young showing no trace of attachment of the 

 yolk-stalk — i. e., with this completely absorbed into the belly — which were still 

 attended by the male, who guarded them as devotedly as ever." 



At what age the fish become sexually mature I can not say, but not infre- 

 quently empty shells were found inhabited by fish from 2 to 9 inches long (aver- 

 aging about 6 inches). At least one 6-inch specimen was a "ripe" male, while 

 another, 53^ inches long, proved on dissection to be a female with ovaries filled 

 with eggs of fairly large size. As no attempt to escape was made on the part 

 of these fish, it seems probable that the shell-dwelling habit is formed early. 



There has been neither time nor opportunity in the course of this research 

 for the writer to go into any particular study of the extensive literature of nest 

 building by fishes, but the following interesting account has come to notice and 

 is in all ways so parallel to that given for the toadfish that it is worth repro- 



« There is at Beaufort a blenny which lays its eggs in shells and guards them. One dissection 

 showed that the guardian was a male. 



