256 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
in summer. We tried hand-lines, but even the dogfish were off the 
bottom and we caught nothing. The dogfish near the surface amused 
themselves and us by trying to steal the bait from our hooks without 
taking the hook in their mouths. One of the men held a line alongside 
among the dogfish. A very shrewd youngster came up and bit at the 
shank of the book as if to try its quality; then he carefully took be- 
tween his teeth one edge of the bait as far as possible from the point of 
the hook, and shook his bead like a dog to free the morsel, and he 
escaped with it. 
This habit of swimming with the dorsal out of water is called u fin- 
ning.” Captain Collins has seen it in June on Brown’s Bank, the fish 
extending as far as the eye could reach on moderate evenings ; some 
of the men of the Grampus have seen the u finning” all through the 
moderate summer evenings on the New England fishing banks, 
LAMNA CORNUBICA. 
May 10. The gill-nets of the Grampus were hauled and contained 
twenty-one mackerel, while rolled up in the eastern end of the herring 
net we found a mackerel shark 67 inches long. In its stomach were j 
the remains of six Prionotus and four small Squalus. I found a few 
parasites, most of them on the edges of the caudal lobes. The location 
of this haul was in about north latitude 38° 07', west longitude 74° 21'. 
FISH EGGS. 
May 19. In the evening, not far from the southern light ship on 
Five-fathom Bank, the Grampus took many floating eggs in the towing 
net. 
May 20. In latitude 38° 42', longitude 74° 21 7 a few floating eggs 
were taken in the towing net. 
May 26. Floating eggs similar to those found near Five-fathom Bank 
Southern Light-ship, May 19, were caught with the towdng net in the 
eastern end of Long Island Sound early in the morning. The oil glob- 
ule was very noticeable in these eggs. 
May 30. Two species of floating eggs were found abundant in Nar- 
ragansett Bay, differing in size and development. Two ribbons Of 
Lophius eggs were seen. The envelope of the egg mass was so tough 
and tenacious that we were obliged to cut it with a knife. The eggs 
are in honeycomb-like cells. 
FISH TR^PS. 
May 26. Some of the fishes caught in the fish traps about the east- 
ern end of Long Island about this date are : Tetrodon turgidus , Prionotus 
palmipes , Stenotomus ckrysops , Centropristis furvus 3 and Brevoortia tyr- 
annies. 
