The Living CniMyERA and its Egg 189 



one end projecting. This, it is considered, accounts for its ex- 

 treme rarity in the marine zoologist's hauls. 



In the Fisheries Museum in Ottawa, a specimen of the egg 

 of Chimaera is exhibited but the young fish had hatched out 

 before it was obtained. 



The scientific interest of a fish like Chimrera is very great. 

 There are not more than three or four species now existing and 

 they are widely scattered in the most diverse seas. No doubt 

 it is an ancient typc'of fish and may be the last of a dying race. 

 Its protocercal or equal-lobed tapering tail is more primitive 

 than that of any other fish. In some points e.g. the spiral valve, 

 the ventrally placed mouth, and the cartilaginous skeleton, it is 

 allied to the sharks. Its naked skin is in contrast to both sharks 

 and ganoids, while the operculum, almost enclosing the branchial 

 apparatus, connects it with Ganoids and Teleosts. The teeth, 

 ears and jaw cartilages are very peculiar, the palato-quadrate 

 bar being unsegmented. Whether to class it with the sharks, or 

 establish as Professor Huxley urged, a separate sub-class 

 Holocephali, for these few fish, the Chimseras, scientific 

 authorities are not yet agreed. 



Linnseus called it Chimsera on account of its peculiar ex- 

 ternal aspect, but its anatomical and other features fully justify 

 the name. It is at once a primitive, aberrant, and grotesque 

 creature, with characteristics which are common to all the 

 various sub-classes of the great class of fishes. It is in many 

 respects one of the most generalised of existing fishes, and on 

 that account it is of the highest scientific interest. 



Marine Uept., Ottawa, 

 January, 1897. 



