No. 465.] STUDIES OF MYXINOIDS. _ 637 
is overcrowded, and the bare wood spaces preémpted, those left 
out will, for the most part, gather together and form a tangled 
coil, looking much like the conventional Medusa’s head. 
Perhaps another factor entered into this consideration of bot- 
tom, however. Was it altogether a feeling of touch that gov- 
erned their choice of resting place, or did color play a part? 
Did they prefer the dark to the light ? Two hagfish were trans- 
ferred to an ordinary aquarium with glass sides and a zinc bot- 
tom. Half of this bottom was covered with sand to the same 
thickness as that in the large tank, and the sand and zinc were 
nearly the same color. The fish were kept here for several 
weeks, and acted just as they had in the large wooden tank. 
They coiled persistently on the hard zinc bottom, against the 
side of the aquarium, or against the iron waste pipe, seldom 
being found on the sand. After a few days I put a rock in the 
midst of the sand bottom, and after that one or the other would 
be found lying against it, but otherwise they shunned the sand, 
showing that it was purely a sense of touch that guided them. 
The hagfish seem to have great power of resistance to unnat- 
ural environment, judging by the way they are handled by the 
Monterey fishermen, and the condition in which they reach the 
laboratory. Theyare taken from the traps between six and ten 
o'clock in the morning, dumped, fifty of them together, into an 
oblong can with a base about ten inches square and sides per- 
haps eighteen inches high, barely covered with water, and then 
stowed somewhere in the bottom of the boat while the fisher- 
man finishes his business and rows to shore, a distance of two 
orthree miles. Arrived on shore, they remain sometimes for 
several hours in the same uncovered cans before transportation 
to the laboratory. At the laboratory they undergo one more 
handling, as they are counted on being put into the aquarium. 
But in spite of this long wait in very little, poorly aérated 
water, but few die, though they are greatly crowded, and some- 
times roughly handled. The long exposure to the air likewise 
seems not to affect them if the weather be not too warm, and 
the can not too full, so that the sun does not strike directly 
upon them. Of the first catch of about fifty, all lived ; and of 
the second of one hundred and thirty-two, brought up in two 
