of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



283 



The literature dealing with these young forms need not be given here, 

 as Cunningham has given a very full account of it in some of his papers,* 

 and he has described a specimen of Leptocephalus Morrisii which he 

 obtained at Plymouth in June, 1895. f Besides the classical papers of 

 Grassi and Calandruccio, reference may be made to two papers, one by 

 Eigenmann on " The Egg and Development of the Conger Eel," and the 

 other by the same author and C. H. Kennedy, on the " Leptocephalus 

 of the American Eel and other American Leptocephali," both published 

 in 190U 



A Larval Fierasfer. 



On 8th October last year a larval Fierasfer was taken in a tow-net 

 used on board a fishing boat at a distance of about 185 miles E. by N. 

 of Aberdeen ; the net was used between the surface and twenty fathoms, 

 the depth at the place being between fifty and sixty fathoms. (PI. 

 XVITL, fig. 3, 3a). 



The specimen measured 64mm. (2| inches) in length and exhibits the 

 slender form characteristic of the genus ; the yolk, as indicated in the 

 figure, forms a considerable mass. The remarkably elongated first dorsal 

 ray was apparently damaged, but enough of it is left to show the 

 presence of the skinny lobes with which it is provided. 



Fierasfer is remarkable for its habit in the adult condition of living 

 within Holothurians in a condition of commensalism, but it would 

 appear that its larval pelagic life is one of considerable duration. It is 

 an extremely rare fish, and even Emery, who has written the classical 

 monograph on it,§ was able to obtain only a few specimens. 



Outside the Mediterranean, specimens have rarely been obtained. 

 According to Couch, Edwards found six specimens, between 6 and 7cm. 

 long, in March, 1863, on a sandy bottom off the coast of Banff, but the 

 record stands in need of confirmation and is passed over by Day. The 

 latter author mentions only two examples of F. dentatus, both got on the 

 south coast of Ireland, one in 1836 and the other in 1852, and there 

 does not appear to be any other good British record of its occurrence. 



Only other three specimens appear to be recorded for the north of 

 Europe. One was taken by a fisherman in from 100-200 fathoms on 

 the Jutland Beef, to the west of the Scaw — and therefore not a great 

 distance from the locality where the specimen here recorded was 

 obtained — and it is now in the Boyal Museum at Stockholm. The 

 second specimen was got near Stavanger in 1881, and was described by 

 Collet ; it is in the Bergen Museum. || The third was a specimen of 

 F. acus. obtained by H.M.S. Triton in the Faroe Channel, on 9th August, 

 1882, close to the surface. It measured 104mm. in length, and has 

 been described by Giinther.^ 



The Sting-Bay (Trygon pastinaca). 



On the 22nd October a specimen of the sting-ray was taken in the 

 trawl by one of the trawlers engaged in scientific work in the Dornoch 

 Firth in from 8-13 fathoms. It was a female, measuring in extreme 

 length 63'Ocm., and in extreme breadth 37*5cm. It is noteworthy that 



*Journ. Marine Biol. Assoc,, vol. iii, p. 281 ; vol. ii, p. 36. 

 flbid.,iv, p. 74. 



XBull. U. S. Fish Comm. for 1901, pp. 37-81. 



§" Fierasfer. Studi intorno alia sistematica, ranatomia e la biologia delle specie mediter- 

 ranee di questo genere." Atti R. Accad. d. Lincei, vii., 1879-80. 

 II Christian. Vidensh. Forhandl. 1882, No. 19. 



IT "Report on the Pelagic Fishes collected by H.M.S. 'Challenger' during the years 

 1873-1876," page 27, 1899. 



