GILL] LIFE HISTORIES OF TOADFISHES 397 
On the approach of cold weather the toadfishes retreat from the 
shallow to deeper water and, according to Ayres (1842), “bury them- 
selves in the mud and remain torpid, and are very frequently brought 
up with the spear while striking in the mud for eels.” One was 
carried to Ayres “ which had been taken in this manner, October 
27, 1840; it was torpid and lived nearly twenty-four hours without 
water.” 
Having received protection during the winter, in its muddy retreat 
or water of considerable depth, from the conditions superinduced 
by the cold of the northern states, in the summer toadfishes closely 
approach the shore; this movement is to a large extent at least 
induced by the procreative instinct. In the southern states, the 
approach to shore and the reproductive season commence earlier— 
in the Gulf of Mexico “in April or May.” The females and males 
seek suitable places for the deposit of the eggs and the duties of 
reproduction are duly assumed by the respective sexes. The eggs 
are large—very large as fish eggs go and almost as big as a wolf- 
fish’s; they have diameters of “from 5 to 514 millimeters,” en- 
Fic. t10.—Common toadfish eggs on Pinna shell. After photograph by E. W. 
Gudger. 
larged by the extent of the yolk, devoid of oil-globules, and “ dirty 
yellow, almost amber-colored.” They are fastened “to the surfaces 
of submerged objects” of stone, wood, or what not, and “a dis- 
coidal area” or disk, “about 3 millimeters in diameter at the upper 
