No. 633] SHORTER ARTICLES AND DISCUSSION 



381 



partially covering itself with sand by a lateral twisting of the 

 body. It is able, by a sudden movement of the body, to inflict 

 a rather painful wound with the opercular spine. 



The stomachs of the specimens examined from reef-pools were 

 mostly empty ; one contained some sand and an empty snail shell, 

 while another had eaten a crab (Petrolisthes) , of a species which 

 abounds beneath stones along the fore-shore. Eigenmann (1892) 

 found an anchovy in the stomach of a Porichthys from San Diego 

 Bay, and the writer found a sardine (Sard in in atrulca) in the 

 stomach of a specimen from San Diego County. 



The adult is dull brownish, varying very little in color and 

 not much in shade. The photophores are evident as silvery spots, 

 due to the reflection of external light. There is a whitish trans- 

 lucent spot below the eye, and another behind the pectoral fin, 

 in the position of a large pore in Batrachus tau. Owing per- 

 haps to a greater development of black pigment, the males retain 

 more of the dark pattern of the young than the females do. 

 The coloration of specimens 26 mm. long was described in the 

 field as follows. Eight greenish black bars extend from the 

 mediodorsal line to the upper edge of a broad silvery stripe with 

 metallic reflections, which occupies the middle third of the body. 

 The fins are clear, excepting a basal caudal bar, and the two 

 dorsal spines. The head is mottled with dark above, and is 

 silvery on the sides and clear below, excepting the dark ring sur- 

 rounding each photophore. A conspicuous narrow black streak, 

 located below the eye, branches once or twice posteriorly. 



Parental care is generally practised in the Batra<-li"idida\ 

 I'oricht/nis notatns, as noted above, after migrating shoreward 

 during the late spring and early summer, breeds in shallow 

 water, within tidal limits from the region of Pt. Conception 

 northward, where all of the following observations were made. 

 No details of the breeding habits prior to the guarding of the 

 eggs have heretofore been published. Males with enlarged testes 

 were taken by the writer on several occasions from June 2 to 

 June 15, in no case guarding eggs, and in one instance, on June 

 20, one was found in company with a female containing matured 

 eggs. A male with ripe testes was found washed up on the 

 beach near the reef of Government Pt., near Pt. Conception, on 

 July 15. The females must leave the pools as soon as, or soon 

 after, the eggs are laid, as none other than the one just men- 

 tioned was observed in the tidal zone. As Greene (1899) has 

 already remarked, it is the males which guard the eggs and 



