i88g.] Zoology. 1 015 
Reproduction of Fishes.— Mr. J. T. Cunningham gives {/our. 
Manne Biol. Assn. of the Uiiited Kingdom, No. i) the results of his 
studies of the ova, times of spawning, etc., of a number of British 
fishes. The paper will prove of considerable value to American stu- 
dents in the identification of the eggs and embryos of fishes. In the 
case of the mackerel, Mr. Cunningham found that no circulating ap- 
paratus served to keep the eggs, the density of the water possibly 
having considerable to do with the fatality. The mantle of cells which 
surround the oil globule at a later stage of the egg is regarded as 
formed of " periblastic syncytium." The <:u^^i, regarded by Agassiz and 
Whitman as belonging to the smelt (^Osmcnis mordax) is said to be- 
long to one of the Clupeoids. The fact is noted that fishes with much 
fat are ajK to have oil globules in the eggs, while allied species with 
dry flesh have no oil globules. Some notes are gi\en on the cojlom 
and vascular system. . Six plates illustrate the i)a])er. 
The Halosauroid Fishes Typical of a Special Order.-Among 
the nuuK-rou.-, representatives of the deep >ca. ur ba..alian. faup.a. one 
of the- mo>t charactetistic is the tamilv of Hal<.>anri(:^. Tli;^ i'aimly 
ha,s been a])proximated b) most ichthyolo-i.ts t.^ the Notopterid.. and 
Alei)ocephalids and their supi)ovea allien The external characters are 
however so peculiar, as manifested in tlie oj^ereular a])])aratiis and sub- 
orbital chain, that in 1S83 I ^^a^ *-onvin<-a! that the family rej^re- 
sented a very distinct subordinal or ordinal group. Dr. (ninther, in 
1868 (Cat Fi.shes, E. M., \ii., 482), assigned to the genus Halosaurus, 
a preoperculum produced behind into a long, flat process. re])lacing 
the sub- and interop'crculum. The improbability of such a coales- 
cence of the preoj.erculum and subonerrnl :; 1. r. \;l\v of o'lr know- 
ledge of the genesis and development' . • extreme 
the ( 
At Wood's Hoil 
232-236, PI. 60. ; 
homologues of :1, 
systematic import cf t' c t.u ■. <" -. . 
the skeleton are however numeroi 
to the multiplication of ordinal gn 
