926 THE SEA-HORSE AND ITS YOUNG. 
which the gills are arranged in little tufts on each side 
of the head under the “cheek” bones or gill covers. 
Hence the, name Lophobranch, which is derived from the 
Greek, signifying tuft-gilled. But, perhaps, more curious 
is that distinction drawn from their mode of repro- 
duction ; a trait so strange, as to suggest the seemingly 
abnormal habits of the Marsupials, —the Opossum and 
the Kangaroo,—although the eccentricity of the fish 
is far greater than that of the land marsupial; for, in 
ri latter, it is the female whose pouch receives the 
immature young, and which are therein nourished to 
complete their development. The parental relation of 
the female Lophobranch, however, is restricted to the 
simple emission of the unimpregnated eggs. Beyond 
this, maternity she has none. The male is really, and 
literally, father and mother to the progeny ; and so far as 
the reproductive instincts are concerned, it would seem 
that the female manifestation is summed up and exhausted 
in the one solitary and singular act of a formal consign- 
ment of the ova to the embryonal sack of the male. 
Though the species of the Lophobranchs are quite nu- 
merous, they are all referable to three principal groups 
or families, of which the Flying Dragon (Pegasus), the 
Sea-horse (Hippocampus), and the Pipe-fish (Syngna- 
thus) are types. The following observations were made 
upon the Hippocampus hudsonius De Kay, or the common 
Sea-horse of the Atlantic coast of the United States. 
A sea-side residence favoring the design for the past 
ten years, I have let no opportunity slip of studying the 
habits of the Sea-horse, hoping to get at some of the 
_ necessarily interesting facts which must stand connected 
with its peculiar mode of reproduction. Owing to diffi- 
culties too tedious for detail, nothing like gratifying suc- 
