1222 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
The Lancelet was first described in 1774 by Pallas, 
who had received a specimen from the Cornish coast. 
He took the ventral side between the metapleures to 
be a creeping-disk, and therefore referred the animal 
to the genus Umax. His figure was copied in PI. 80, 
among the vers mollusques , in the Encyclopedic Metlio- 
dique; but the Lancelet remained otherwise unknown 
for nearly sixty years. The species was then redis- 
covered at no great intervals of time in four localities, 
and was shown to be a fish. Couch found it in 1831 
on the shore near Polperro, Rasch in 1833 on the 
Norwegian coast, Costa in 1834 at Naples, and Fr. 
Sundevall and S. Loven in the same year on the 
Weather Islands (Bohuslan). In 1838 our figure was 
painted by v. Wright for Fries, with a view to a 
description which death prevented the latter from com- 
pleting. The specimens collected by Fries, however, 
came into the hands of C. J. Sundevall, his successor 
at the Royal Museum, and Anders Retzius, and sug- 
gested the first scientific examination of the fish, an 
undertaking which was carried out on the coast of 
Bohuslan in Retzius’s company by Johannes Muller. 
In later times the most important contributions to our 
knowledge of the Lancelet have come from Messina 
and the Zoological Station at Naples. On the west 
coast of France and the English coast the species is 
also common enough in suitable localities, on a bottom 
of sand and gravel, preferably shell-sand, from the 
tide-mark to a depth of some tens of fathoms. In 
Scandinavian waters it is dispersed from Trondhjem 
Fjord (Storm) and along Southern Norway into the 
Cattegat, where it is commonest, according to Wintiier, 
in 5 — 9 fathoms of water, but has also been found at 
a depth of 1 7 1 / s fathoms. The southern limit of its 
known range in Scandinavia is the north of the Sound, 
at Hellebiek in Zealand (Lutken) and on both sides 
of Samso, between Zealand and Jutland. On the coast 
of Bohuslan it is plentiful, according to Malm and 
Theel, in the tine shell-sand of the eastern harbour 
on Storo, one of the Weather Islands, where it was 
found first by Loven and Sundevall. Tiieel found 
numerous specimens of the Lancelet on the skerry of 
Bouden, and Malm a few on Flatholm, several on Gaso 
(all three localities at the entrances of Gullmar Fjord), 
and a few on Paternoster Skerry, north of Marstrand. 
The specimens collected on Bonden by Theel at the 
end of June, 1894, were kept for some days at Kris- 
tineberg in a glass bowl with tine sand at the bottom, 
before being sent alive to the Royal Museum. In the 
meantime (till the 30th of June) they had deposited 
quantities of eggs, which had already attained or passed 
the gastrula stage. Some days afterwards larvae 1 1 / s 
mm. long were taken in the aquarium, their stage of 
development being that shown above in tig. 375. After- 
wards numerous larvae 37 2 — 5 mm. long were caught, 
at the stages represented in our figures 376 and 379, 
swimming freely in the sea at Kristineberg, close up 
to the jetties on the shore, at a depth of 1 — 4 fthms. 
below the surface. These larvae too were forwarded 
without difficulty alive to the Royal Museum. 
