424 



FISHES 



CHAP. 



Flounders and species of Sehastodes, and it is especially destruc- 

 tive to Fishes taken in gill-nets. At Monterey every net in 

 the summer contains the empty shells of eviscerated Fishes, and 

 when these are taken out of the water the Hag scrambles out 

 with great alacrity. Large fishes of even 30 pounds weight are 

 often captured without either flesh or viscera, and it cannot be 

 supposed that they entered the net in this condition.-' The 

 species lives on the sea-bottom most abundantly at a depth of 

 10-20 fathoms, but becomes rarer as the water deepens or 

 becomes shallower. 



Fig. 241. — A, Cluster of the eggs of BdeUostoma stouti, connected by the interlocking of 

 their anchor-shaped filaments ; B, the animal pole of an egg, showing the polar 

 "anchors " and the opercular ring. (From Bashford Dean.) 



The, eggs of the Calif ornian BdeUostoma are large, varying in 

 size from 14'3— 29 mm. in length, and from 6-8— 10-5 mm. in 

 width, and each egg is enclosed in a horny egg-case secreted 

 by the epithelium of its ovarian ovisac^ (Fig- 241). At each 

 pole of the egg-case there is a tuft of numerous horny filaments 

 which end in 2- 3- or 4-hooked, anchor-like extremities. In 

 the centre of the tuft of filaments at the animal pole of the egg 

 the egg-case is perforated by a micropyle, and a little below this 



^ Jordan and Evermann, Buil. U.S. Nat, Mus. No. 47 ; The Fishes of North 

 and Middle America, Pt. i. 1896, p. 6. 

 ^ B. Dean, op. cit. p. 230 et seq. 



