HABITS AND LIFE HISTORY OF THE TOADFISH. 1 1 03 



thoroughly functional, the vascular system spreads over the yolk and brings 

 in digested food with the concomitant rapid enlargement of the embryo, the 

 pelvic fins rapidly grow forward to their permanent position, and the other fins, 

 dorsal and caudal, are formed. Presently the bands and markings begin to 

 appear faintly. The embryos, which at the beginning of this stage looked 

 more like tadpoles, larval frogs, than larval fish, now begin to look not merely 

 fish-like,, but decidedly toadfish-Iike. 



Late stage. — There is no marked event to set apart the early and late larval 

 stages as the bursting of the shell delimits the former from the purely embryonic 

 forms. So for the sake of convenience I will (somewhat arbitrarily) choose the 

 appearance of the color bands as making the distinction, since their appearing 

 does to some degree divide the larval life into fairly definite stages. 



These markings first appear in the tail region as three faint bands of grayish 

 color, one at the root of the caudal and two across the median portion of the 

 tail. A little later a fourth band appears in the region of the spinous dorsal, 

 and finally a smaller band running transversely to the rays of the caudal adds 

 much to the appearance of that organ. The two transverse bands on the tail 

 gradually extend into the long dorsal and ventral fins and, aided by the diver- 

 sified coloring of the head and by the St. Andrew's crosses in the iris of the eyes, 

 give the little fish a really beautiful appearance. An inspection of figure 13, 

 plate cxiii, numbers i to 7, will make clear all these points. In this photograph 

 the larvae, specially " killed " and preserved in alcohol, are enlarged two diameters. 



Figure 9, plate cxi, represents a nest of late larvse twice natural size. 

 Unfortunately the fish at this stage were almost the color of the nest (a Pinna 

 shell) , and they do not show up very clearly. The growth of the larvae, however, 

 from the stage shown in the preceding paragraph is very apparent. 



Somewhat older are the toadlets shown in figure 10, plate cxi, which is an 

 instantaneous photograph (natural size) of the nest shown in figures 5 and 8. Not 

 only is the focus better than the preceding photograph, but the contrast between 

 the color of the board and that of the young is so strong as to bring out the latter 

 very distinctly. Both the mottlings on the head and the bands across the body 

 are very distinct. The larvae are very toadfish-like with their broad heads and 

 large pectorals. In passing it should be noted that the heads of the fish point 

 in all directions. The young are very active, lashing right and left with their 

 tails continually, and in this observation I am in disagreement with Ryder 

 (1887), who says that, while the young are still adherent, the Uttle fish keep up 

 a rapid motion of the pectorals, to aid in carrying away the water from the 

 gills, while the tail is comparatively still. I find that the pectorals rarely show 

 any motion, while the tails are more frequently in motion than at rest, until the 

 last few days before the young detach themselves. At this late period their 



