MM.] THE LUMPSUCKER 191 



observed on the back of the male, a habit sometimes attributed to 

 them." 



No more eggs were hatched after the 22d of May. "The greater 

 number were still unhatched on that day," but the remainder of the 

 mass of eggs were "black and fetid" and many of the larvae were 

 "dead and white" and "floating on the water." "Clearly the aeration 

 had not been sufficient for the interior of the egg-masses." Fulton 

 believed that, under natural conditions, "the time taken for the 

 hatching of all the eggs is prolonged, for it is difficult to understand 

 how the larvae could make their way from the interior of the mass 

 by the narrow channels between the eggs if the eggs there were 

 hatched as soon as those in the exterior." 



Doubtless, under natural conditions, protected by the vigilance 

 of the father fish, a large majority of the eggs are hatched and the 

 larvae escape to live a free life for more or less time. Doubtless, 

 too, a greater loss of life is then incurred than during their hatching 

 period, for they no longer enjoy their father's care. Their early 

 developmental history has been detailed by A. Agassiz (1887), W. C. 

 Mcintosh, and A. T. Masterman (1897). 



As soon as the eggs are hatched the male is released and the young 

 disperse all around, resorting to the rock-pools in the neighborhood 

 in hundreds. The rock-pools and the littoral region in general are 

 the chief resorts "for some time." There they were found by Mc- 

 intosh and Masterman, in Scotland, to later adhere to the blades of 

 the tangles and other sea-weeds, and in the mazes of these they 

 would "find that safety (by the ready application of their suckers) 

 which would be denied in the open sea. They are also common in 

 the neighboring waters inshore, being carried hither and thither on 

 the floating littoral sea-weeds." 1 (See also p. 140.) 



1 The young are protected to a considerable extent by assimilation to 

 surrounding objects. According to W. A. Smith (nth Rep. F. B. Scotl., 

 p. 390), "perhaps the simplest and most interesting example of such 

 assimilation is to be found in the young of the Lumpsucker." Smith 

 observed "the young in multitudes, when the capsules were being thrown 

 from the" olive-green seaweed amongst which they lived, hovering about 

 "and making no effort to escape, further than dodging alongside one of 

 the capsules which was an exact counterpart of itself, both in size and 

 general tone of coloring." H. C. Williamson (17th Rep., p. 128) also 

 called attention to the fact that young Lumpsuckers "were found at the 

 surface on drifting pieces of Fucus." Smith, probably mistakenly, 

 thought that these young, "only one inch in length," were "probably a 

 year old or thereabouts," and that fishes weighing "12 or 14 pounds must 

 be of great age." Tosh estimated the age of an inch-long (22 or 23 mm.) 

 fish to be five months. 



