THE INFANCY OF FISHES 219 



The butter-fish {Pholis) of our coasts lays a mass of 

 eggs, and around this the male coils his body just as do 

 the python, and the ichthyophis which we have already 

 described. 



Mention has been made already, in discussing the 

 frogs, it may be remembered, of certain species which 

 carry the eggs, and sometimes the young, attached to 

 their bodies. We meet, strangely enough, with similar 

 instances among the fishes. Thus the Aspredo, of the 

 Guianas, bears her eggs attached to the lower surface 

 of the body, which, for their reception, assumes a spongy 

 condition in which the eggs are embedded, and for 

 further security are attached by a short stalk richly 

 supplied with blood-vessels. 



Similarly, just as certain frogs display a singular habit 

 of carrying the eggs in the mouth, so also, strangely 

 enough, do some fishes. These belong, on the one hand, 

 to the Cat-fishes (siluridae), and on the other to certain 

 wrasse-like species known as Cichlidse. Generally this 

 duty is undertaken by the male. In Arivs, an Indian 

 species of cat-fish, the eggs have been found filling the 

 cavity of the mouth as far back as the gills, so that during 

 the process of incubation he is quite unable to feed. 

 Among the freshwater wrasses, or Cichlidae, the eggs are 

 apparently more commonly carried by the female. This 

 seems invariably to be the case with the African species 

 of this group. 



In some cases, at any rate, the parent not only incubates 

 the egg in its mouth, but also shelters the young therein 

 when danger threatens. Dr. Reinhold Hensel, writing of 

 a species known as Geophagus scymnophilus — a BraziUan 

 species which unhappily has no name in common speech — 

 states that one of the parents, he does not say which. 



