320 THE FLOUNDER FAMILY. 



state. Thus the connection between them and the foregoing 

 was not made out. Some specimens again seemed to have 

 discharged all their eggs on the 21st March. Northern writers 

 give the end of winter as the spawning-period, while Malm says 

 the fishermen of Bohuslan observed that the roe ran in February 

 and was spent by the month of March'. Every season (viz., 

 in March, April and May) since 1884 these eggs have been 

 brought in greater or less numbers to the Marine Laboratory 

 and hatched. A figure of the same egg was also shown to one of 

 us by Mr J. T. Cunningham in 1885, but he likewise had not 

 ascertained the form to which it belonged, for in 1887'' he 

 observes that he had not been able to hatch it, and that no 

 similar egg had been obtained from an adult fish. Further 

 remarks on the egg and newly -hatched larva were made in the 

 'Pelagic Fauna of St Andrews Bay;'^ the advanced embryo 

 tending to the upper arch of the egg in floating, and presenting 

 along the sides minute yellowish (chrome) and black chromato- 

 phores, which after hatching were still in most cases unbranched. 

 In the Researches* the same egg was again alluded to, and the 

 early post-larval fish figured. It 'presents three distinct yellow- 

 ish bars behind the vent, another at the latter, and a line along 

 the dorsum of the intestine, besides various touches of the 

 same on the head and elsewhere. Stellate black chromato- 

 phores occur along with the yellow, and in the early condition 

 are present on the yolk. The eyes soon assume a silvery 

 aspect. The larval fish is active and comparatively large, 

 resembling in certain respects the plaice. It is probably a 

 pleuronectid.' 



When surveying the fishing-grounds off the west coast of 

 Ireland with Mr Green and Prof. Haddon in 1891, Mr Holt 

 found that these eggs pertained to the long-rough dab, and 

 thus their comparative abundance was readily explained. A 

 similar relationship had been suspected at St Andrews, since 



' Scmid. Fishes, p. 425. 



2 Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. xxxiii, p. 105, PI. VU, fig. 2. 

 •■* W. C. M. Seventh Annual Report Scottish Fishery Board, p. 270, PI. Ill, 

 figs. 1-3. 1889. 



4 Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., xxxv, iii, p. 853, PI. XVIII, fig. 2, Feb. 1890. 



