678 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
prey to it. Though the mouth is small, it is capable 
of quite considerable extension, as we have already 
remarked of the two preceding species. There is no 
doubt, however, that the Deep-nosed Pipefish under- 
takes roving expeditions at the surface of deeper wa- 
ter: one of the BohusDn fishermen who have collected 
marine animals for the Royal Museum, has handed 
over to Professor S. Loven a specimen taken “in the 
North Sea, off Bergen.” 
Ekstrom’s experience in the island-belt of Morko 
was that, “though the Deep-nosed Pipefish haunts the 
shore, in shallow water, it still repairs to deep water 
during the warmer part of the year". In autumn, 
winter, and the early part of spring it is met with in 
the inlets, in water of little depth. From the end of 
April to the beginning of November it is less plenti- 
ful in these localities, and during the whole of May 
and a part of June it is taken extremely seldom and 
invariably in deep water. In temperament it seems to 
be sluggish and not very timid. Its movements in the 
water are stiff, and betoken but little activity.” 
It was the history of the Deep-nosed Pipefish that 
gave Ekstrom the clue to the explanation of the hitherto 
obscure sexual relations of all the Lophobranchs. “It 
has long been known,” he writes in 1831, “that the 
Deep-nosed Pipefish carries the roe as well as the new- 
hatched young under its tail. Even Aristotle 5 re- 
marked in this species the peculiarity, otherwise rare 
among fishes, that the eggs seem to pass, not as in 
most fishes through the vent, but through a slit in the 
body. He did not pay any attention, however, to the 
organ that envelops the eggs and the young during 
their development, but supposed that the eggs were 
metamorphosed within the abdominal cavity, and that 
the belly itself was opened by the development of the 
eggs, at the slit which appears behind the vent. He 
thus seems to have been the first to promulgate the 
long persistent theory that this slit did not belong to 
a distinct organ, but was due to the bursting of the 
belly by the growth of the eggs. /Elian c maintained 
the same opinion. Pliny quotes the very words of 
Aristotle, with the only alteration that the bursting 
of the belly was due to the number of the eggs. 
Rondelet' 7 Avas the first to remark that the eggs are 
contained in a special organ.” Rondelet further stated 
that the females are distinguished by the possession of 
this organ from the males, an opinion Avhich survived 
until Ekstrom published his observations at Morko. 
“The spawning- season of the Deep-nosed Pipefish,” says 
Ekstrom, “occurs here in the month of May, Avhen the 
male is forced to seek his female, or vice versa; and 
as a regular copulation between the sexes is necessary, 
the spawning takes a longer time than among fishes 
in general 6 . At the end of April the females desert 
the shore and the shalloAvs to begin their spawning in 
deeper water. As the spawning season approaches, the 
foliate lids that close the opening of the marsupium of 
the male, become tumid, and the marsupium is gradu- 
ally filled with a white, clear, and thick mucus, Avhich 
serves as a bed for the eggs. The eggs lie imbedded 
in this mucus, which decreases in quantity according 
to the growth of the young, until little or none of it 
remains by the time that the fry are large enough to 
SAvim and independently to move through the Avater. 
— The eggs, Avhich lie in regular, moniliform roAvs, are 
large' in proportion to the fish and, Avhen they are 
deposited, yelloAv, but gradually turn Avhite and be- 
come transparent Avitli a fine, dark yelloAv point, the 
rudiment of the embryo. — At the middle of June the 
fish gradually return to the shore from their spawning- 
places. At the end of July, in some cases, the young 
are so developed that they can leave the marsupium 
and folloAv the movements of their father. In other 
cases the roe has been only just deposited. In a fe- 
male about 2 dm. long I counted 240 eggs in the 
ovaries. In the marsupium of the male I never found 
a quarter of this number 6 ’. Many of the eggs must, 
therefore, be lost during copulation, and Ave must thus 
“ KR0YER lias remarked that at this season the shrimps also retire to deep water. 
b Hist, anim., lib. VI, cap. XIII. This remark applies rather to the more common Mediterranean species Syngnathus Rondeletii. 
c Lib. II, cap. XIII. 
d De Pise., lib. VIII, p. 229. 
e More recently it has been discovered that the copulation must be repeated several times, for a female never discharges all her eggs 
at once into the marsupium of the male, the anterior end of which is open during copulation, and is penetrated by the oviduct, now pro- 
jecting to a length of several millimetres. Cf. Lafont, Actes de la Soc. Linn, de Bordeaux, 1871, t. 28, p. 251, Heincke, Arch. f. Naturg., 
1. c., p. 330, and Lilljeborg, 1. c., p. 438. 
f About 2 mm. in diameter. 
'J In the marsupia of the largest males from Kiel Bay, hoAvever, Heincke found 150 — 200 eggs. 
