40 
ON THE EGG OF A SPECIES OF GOBY. 
By a. meek, M.Sc. 
We are yet almost completely ignorant as to the species of Goby 
which occur on the North East coast of England, and it is therefore 
not at all surprising that a patch of eggs belonging to a species of 
which we have no local record, should be discovered. But the egg 
to which I now beg to draw attention is important in that it cannot 
be satisfactorily identified with that of any of the known species. 
The patch of eggs of which we give a figure, was found in an 
old shell of Mya truncata brought up in the dredge, on July 25th, 
1902, in 25 fathoms, 4 miles east of St. Mary’s Island. This was 
at the annual dredging trip of the Northumberland Coast Club. 
A drawing of one of the ova was made by Mr. W. II. Young, 
E.Z.S., and has been copied to form Figure 2 of the accompanying 
plate. The others agree closely with that figured, and as will be 
seen, they are elongated and fusiform in shape. Near the upper end 
the thin capsule expands slightly before narrowing to form the 
rounded apex. Below, the narrowing is very slow until near the 
lower end which is also rounded where the threads of attachment 
originate. These latter serve to fasten the ova to the shell and to 
each other. They are reticulate only next the egg in each case. 
The egg is about 4 times as long as broad. It measured in the 
fresh condition 2-077 mm. long and 0-48G mm. broad ; in the pre- 
served condition the ova were found to vary between 1-8 and 2-0 
niin, long, and the breadth was C-5 mm. The length of the embryo 
in the case of the one figured was 1-666 mm. The yoke was yellow 
in colour with numerous oil globules. Black pigment was scantily 
present around the yolk sac and on the body. 
I sent a drawing of the egg and a short description to Mr. E. W. 
L. Holt, who, with Mr. Byrne, has recently published an excellent 
paper on the Gobies of Ireland, and he replied that the egg was new 
to him, but suggested that it may be found to belong to Gobius 
friesii. 
