620 SKATES' EGGS AND YOUNG. 
the legs of the monster shark exhibited about the country 
during the last two seasons, and familiar to every one from 
the newspaper descriptions and figures as "the great un- 
known animal; half fish, half quadruped," captured off East- 
port, were simply these organs. 
The skates and rays and the genus Scylliwm, or spotted 
sharks, and their near allies, all lay eggs, contained in and 
protected by the singular horny cases, or shells. These 
cases are of various sizes and shapes according to the species 
of skate or shark by which they are laid. Their general 
form is that of the skates’ figured in this article, but others 
are much larger, and those of the sharks are longer and nar- 
rower than the skates. On the coast of California a very 
large case is often found which always contains more than 
one egg, generally three. I remember one, received at the 
Museum of Comparative Zoélogy about twelve years since, 
that was several inches in length and contained three nearly 
developed embryos. 
All these egg cases are provided with a more or less de- 
veloped horn at each of the four corners. These horns are 
hollow, and are in fact tubes for the passage of water to the 
inside of the case and its exit at the other extremity of the 
sack. By this means the egg and tender embryo while pro- 
tected by the horny covering or case, is furnished with a con- 
stant supply of water during its development. On the side 
of the case are numerous tendrils or filaments, by which the 
case is firmly fastened to seaweed, and hence it is that it is 
only after a violent storm that fresh cases are to be found on 
our beaches. ; 
À few interesting questions which have not yet been fully 
Solved, are: How do the cases become attached to the on 
weed? Are the tendrils fastened by the mother skate in 
any way, or are they, when soft and fresh, so arranged that 
they naturally twine around the seaweed as soon as they 
. ome: in contact with it? Does the skate when about to 
: deposit her eggs go to a spot where seaweed is abundant, of 


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