SOME RARE OR UNCOMMON FISHES 281 



Forth, and it has also been obtained in February, which 

 points to a variable breeding-season. The eggs, pear-shaped 

 and having a single oil-globule, measure about -^^ in. in 

 diameter. They are adhesive, like those of the herring, 

 only they float instead of sinking. An angler measuring 

 nearly 4 ft. contained considerably over a million-and-a- 

 quarter of eggs. The vast sheet in which these float on 

 the water, one deep, is simply a gelatinous conglomeration 

 of the egg-membranes. Black colouring matter is con- 

 spicuously developed in the larva even before hatching. The 

 flattened form of the adult is first noticeable about fifteen 

 days after hatching. During the early free-swimming stage 

 the pectoral fins are enormously developed, streaming out 

 behind the fish like long threads, and there is a later stage 

 in which the little fish is one mass of projecting rays, and 

 has the dorsal rays ramified like the branches of seaweeds, 

 while the front one of all already shows the forked " bait " 

 that is to be of so much use later. 



For evidence of the rate of development after fifteen days 

 from the egg (the latest stage observed in the aquarium) 

 we are dependent on the harvest of the surface tow-net ; but 

 Gtinther, Mcintosh, and Cunningham figure, between them, 

 half a dozen distinct stages that may be usefully compared. 

 The disproportion between the millions of eggs of this fish 

 found floating on our coasts and the very small number of 

 adults, and yet greater scarcity of the post-larval stage, has 

 struck almost every writer, and the only reasonable explana- 

 tion would seem to be that at an early age the angler retires 

 to some part of the sea inaccessible to both hook and net. 

 This view is borne out by the fact that very small adult 

 examples are rarely met with. Young angler -fish were 

 taken ofi^ Cape Verde Islands and off^ the Azores at a depth 

 of from 500 to 700 metres. So far as the records of any 

 county fauna go, there would of course be a tendency to 

 enumerate only the larger examples ; but, apart from this. 



