364 University of California Publications in Zoology. [Vol. 6 



of Chimaera found on the Pacific coast of the United States 

 i Dean, 1906. pp. 6, 7) and was first described by Lay and Bennet, 

 1839, p. 71, pi. 23. in Zoology of Captain Beechey's Voyage. 

 Professor Bashford Dean (1906) bases his work largely on eggs 

 of C. colliei, and gives a description of the living fish, with notes 

 on its occurrence, habitat, food and breeding habits. It occurs 

 in depths of from 5 to 10 fathoms, being found in shallower 

 water in the Puget Sound region than along the California coast. 

 The specimens examined by the writer have come from the fishing 

 grounds off Piiios buoy in Monterey Bay, mentioned by Dean 

 (1906, p. 15) ; from Cabral's banks off San Diego; and to the 

 north of San Diego, off La Jolla, in depths up to fifty fathoms. 

 Dean's observations (1906, p. 20) on the food habits of this 

 species, are as follows : 



' ' In view of the special character of the dentition of Chimaera, one 

 would naturally expect its food supply to be definite in character. The 

 examination of the contents of its gut, however, showed (C. colliei) singu- 

 larly omnivorous habits. It is true that the broken shells of mollusks 

 are commonly found, as well as fragments of good-sized crustaceans, as 

 indeed the scanty literature records. Thus, in the gut of C. monstrosa 

 Faber finds Crustacea and shell-fish fragments; Monticelli, quoting 

 Liitken, Cyprina islandica; and Olsson, broken shells (Leda and Venus) 

 and bits of large decapods. Olsson finds also (and his observations are 

 the most detailed hitherto published on the feeding of Chimaera) chaeto- 

 pods, amphipods, echinoids and polyps. In C. colliei observations on 

 about a score of individuals showed a singular mixture of foods. The 

 most numerous were vertebral columns of small isospondylous fishes, a 

 few mollusk shells, usually greatly crushed, a quantity of sand and fine 

 gravel, squid, nudibranchs and opisthobranchs, bits of eases, jaws and 

 setae of annelids, and occasionally a fragment of a crustacean. In one 

 instance the gut was filled with seaweed. One is not surprised, there- 

 fore, that this species is taken readily with various baits.'' 



The observations on stomach contents made by Professor 

 Kofoid and myself yield results agreeing in general with the 

 above; with the addition that the stomachs contained a great 

 quantity of echinoderm spines, plates, etc. Small fish were com- 

 mon, as were fragments of lamellibranchs, nudibranchs and gas- 

 teropods. Cephalopod beaks were almost always found. Crus- 

 tacean fragments, especially of Hippa and Blepharada, were not 

 uncommon in the San Diego specimens. The fish is so nearly 

 omnivorous in food habits that no definite clue as to the life- 

 history of its parasites can be obtained from these* data. 



