Floating Eggs

Abstract

THE floating eggs which a correspondent in NATURE of July 14 (p. 245) describes and refers to Orthagoriscus, are apparently those of the angler or frog-fish (Lophius piscatorius), which are known to naturalists. They are laid, as Agassiz states (Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts and Sci., vol. xvii. part iii. p. 280), “embedded in an immense ribbon-shaped band, from 2 to 3 feet broad, and from 25 to 30 feet long.” The ova of Orthagoriscus do not appear to have been yet obtained, and Mr. Green's description accords essentially with the features presented by the eggs of Lophius, though no colour is mentioned, whereas the eggs of the frog-fish are of a light violet-gray tint, and when the dark pigment develops in the young embryos the band assumes a blackish hue resembling crape. Examples, I may add, have been obtained on the west coast of Scotland; but, though Lophius is extremely abundant at St. Andrews, and on the east coast generally, the ova have not been procured here, as yet.