6 
Fridtjof Nansen. 
[No. 7. 
ova. I have tried to keep full-grown specimens in wooden cases 
'(hospitals) at the same depths, and on the same description of bot- 
tom, as they generally exist. I have even been able to keep them 
in those cases for about half a year, and I had specimens there 
which I could see were filled with large ova; but my efforts were 
in vain; they obstinately retained their ova. I have tried with the 
dredge, in the same localities as immense numbers of Myxine may 
be obtained at every season of the year, but all in vain, not a single 
deposited ovum springing from the animal mentioned was found. 
Once, my fisherman »Iver« brought me three ova which he had 
found one morning, deposited in one of the wooden cases in which 
some dozensof specimens of Myxine lived; my heart beat violently at 
the sight of the three ova, but, alas! upon a little closer examination 
they proved tobeunripe; they had probably been loosened from the 
ovary by force, and had then been evacuated from the body; the 
polar threads were still undeveloped, and the ova were still surrounded 
by the follicle, torn probably from the ovary along with the ovum. 
I have therefore been no more successful than my predecessors 
in obtaining deposited ova of Myxine. I think, however, that the 
only way to obtain them is by dredging, it may be that we have not: 
yet sought for them in the localities where they are to be found;. 
it may be that we, some day, will find them quite by accident, but 
that we, when they are once discovered, may be able to get them 
just as easily as the ova of any other fish. In the localities where- 
they occur, here in the neighbourhood of Bergen — I think they are 
more common than any other fish; in a single night we may, in one r 
or a few, eel-pots baited with a little, quite fresh, haddock or cod, 
capture such multitudes of them, that it would indeed be a. 
profitable business if the captured fish could be used for domestic 
consumption. It is, therefore, perfectly indubitable that quantities 
of ova are deposited all the year round, and that what we have 
now to discover is — where does the animal deposit its ova. 
Whilst I was trying to find deposited ova of Myxine by 
dredging etc., I found, strangly enough, quite by accident, a deposited 
ovum (which will subsequently be described) in the collection of 
Bergens Museum. It was enclosed in a small glass bottle together 
with some Annelides; the bottle had two lables on which was 
written »Molde«, in a neat and distinct hand-writing, but no other 
information as to when, or how, the ovum was tåken was to be ob- 
tained from that old and dusty bottle, which had been hidden for 
many years in the cellars of the Museum. But fortune favored me,. 
