296 
Part III. — Tenth Annual Report 
of the solenette (Solea Lutea) by Mr Holt * leave little to supplement. 
He found the eggs abundant in the surface-nets in various bays on the 
west coast of Ireland in 1890, in the expedition under the Rev. W. 
Spots wood Green, one of H.M. Inspectors of Fisheries for Ireland. The 
same year several were procured in St Andrews Bay — one on 4th May, 
two on the 11th and one on the 30th July — all at the surface, and a 
sketch of one of these is given in PL XV. fig. 3, the oil-globules 
apparently being somewhat larger than in the Irish specimens, and the 
yolk-segments small. Mr Holt gives the diameter at from '775 to 
•835 mm. 
On the 6th April this year (1892) an egg allied to the foregoing was 
procured in the bottom trawl-like tow-net in ten fathoms about three 
miles east from St Andrews, and another in the same (bottom) net on 
the 10th May. Both specimens were identical in structure (PI. XV. fig. 
4) and size, the diameter being *7620 mm., or slightly smaller than 
those procured in the summer of 1890, or than those described by Mr 
Holt. The largest oil-globule is about *004 mm. At first sight the 
capsule (zona) seems to be thick, but this appears to be due to the 
presence of a perivitelline space, which shows the wrinkles of the zona 
clearly, and also the micropyle. The fine lines and creases of the 
capsule faintly resemble those of the lemon-dab, but this may be due to 
immaturity or contraction of the egg; yet the same structure was present 
in both specimens. The oil-globules greatly exceed in number those of 
the ordinary egg of the solenette (PI. XV. fig. 3), the latter figure 
showing all the oil-globules in the specimen — that is, both the deep- 
seated as well as those near the upper pole of the egg. Moreover, in the 
centre inferiorly, and therefore at the germinal pole of the egg, was a pale 
vesicle (?), considerably larger than any oil-globule, with a few granules 
and an oil-globule at its edge, this of course being of no particular moment 
as a special character. In the eggs of April and May, besides the much 
greater number of small oil-globules, the whole surface of the yolk is 
dotted with minute granules of oil, as indicated in the figure (PI. XV. 
fig. 4). Mr Holt mentions that in his examj)les of the eggs of the 
solenette the oil-globules were restricted to the vegetative hemisphere, 
both in the early and advanced stages of the egg — a condition which 
differed from that in either of the eggs figured on PI. XV., so that pro- 
bably a change subsequently occurs. In the egg of April the yolk was 
invested by a conspicuous layer of protoplasm (a), which fixed the majority, 
if not the whole of the oil-globules, and which in a ruptured egg could 
be observed to peel from the yolk carrying the oil-globules in its folds. 
A similar belt of protoplasm is seen in the ordinary egg of the solenette 
in fig. 3 ; and as no trace of yolk-spheres occurred in the eggs of April 
and May, and only a few small ones in the last-mentioned figure, it may 
be that both are early stages, and perhaps those of April and May are un- 
fertilised. The rarity of the latter condition, however, in pelagic eggs is 
well known. The occurrence of the example resembling the ordinary 
egg of the solenette at the surface, whereas the form alluded to here came 
from the bottom, is also a noteworthy point. 
11. On an Unknown Pelagic Egg with a large Perivitelline Space 
and a single oll-globule. 
On the 8th July 1891 an egg measuring *0495 in., or 1*2573 mm., was 
procured in the bottom trawl-like tow-net in St Andrews Bay, amidst a 
* Trans. Roy. Dub. Soc, vol. iv. } series ii., p. 460, pi. xlvii. rigs. 9 and 10, 
and pi. Hi. figs. 46-52. 
