STAGES IN THE LIFE HISTORY OF GOBIUS, PBTBOSCIBTES 



AND HEMIBHAMPHUS. 



By D. R. Bhattacharya. 



This paper deals with early stages in the life history of Gobius ostreicola, Chaudhuri, 

 Petroscirtes bhattacharyae, Chaudhuri, and Hemirhamphus limbatus, Cuv. and Val. The 

 specimens were all collected in the Chilka Lake by members of the staff of the Indian 

 Museum. I worked on the first two above-mentioned species in the months of May 

 and June, 1915, in the Indian Museum at Calcutta. The specimens of the third were 

 sent to me here at Allahabad, and I worked them out in the Biological laboratory of 

 the Muir Central College, during the month of August, 191 5. As it was too hot then 

 for microtome work, many features of the internal anatomy have been neglected, 

 and the paper naturally is not supposed to be exhaustive. 



My sincere thanks are due to Dr. Annandale, Superintendent of the Indian 

 Museum, and to Dr. Chaudhuri, Assistant Superintendent, Indian Museum, for kindly 

 allowing me to work in the Museum laboratory, for placing the collections of the 

 Chilka Lake Survey at my disposal, and for assisting me in many other ways, 

 especially in looking up literature on the subject. 



Gobius ostreicola, Chaudhuri. 

 (Plate XVII, figs. 1—7.) 



1916. Gobius ostreicola, Chaudhuri, Rec. Ind. Mus., XII, p. 105. 



The specimens were collected on the oyster-beds of Manikpatna in the outer 

 channel of the Chilka Lake during the first week of December, 1914. The water at 

 that place was then almost fresh owing to the floods at the close of the monsoon, though 

 later on in the dry season the water becomes as saline as in the Bay of Bengal. The 

 specific gravity of the water was found to be 1 01250. 



The egg is elongated and oval in shape with a bunch of filaments at the distal 

 extremity which serves as a means of attachment to foreign bodies. In this case the 

 eggs were found attached to the concave side of a dead oyster shell measuring about 

 3 \ inches in length and z\ inches in breadth. On a rough calculation about 400 eggs 

 were found covering a surface of one sq. cm. The method of attachment of the eggs 

 to the shell is very characteristic There springs from the pedicle of the egg a hyaline 

 structure which spreads out like an umbrella and ends in viscid thread-like filaments 

 which adhere to the shell or to the filaments of the adjacent ova. This hyaline 

 structure is traversed by alternate rows of oval apertures which gradually become 

 bigger in size distally. Three or four such concentric rows of apertures may be made 





