Page:Natural History, Fishes.djvu/96

82 Sea-adder, is endowed with a similar instinct. The author of a communication to the Royal Institution of Cornwall, republished in the "Zoologist," thus records his observations:—"During the summers of 1842, and 1843, while searching for the naked mollusks of the county, I occasionally discovered portions of sea-weed and the common coralline hanging from the rocks in pear-shaped masses, variously intermingled with each other. On one occasion, having observed that the mass was very curiously bound together by a slender silken-looking thread, it was torn open, and the centre was found to be occupied by a mass of transparent amber-coloured ova, each being about the tenth of an inch in diameter. Though examined on the spot with a lens, nothing could be discovered to indicate their character. They were, however, kept in a basin, and daily supplied with sea-water, and eventually proved to be the young of some fish. The nest varies a great deal in size, but rarely exceeds six inches in length, or four inches in breadth. It is pear-shaped, and composed of sea-weed or the common coralline, as they hang suspended from the rock. They are brought together, without being detached from their places of growth, by a delicate, opaque, white thread. This thread is highly elastic, and very much resembles silk, both in appearance and texture; this is brought round the plants, and tightly binds them together, plant after plant, till the ova, which are deposited early, are completely hidden from view. This silk-like thread is passed in all directions through and around the mass, in a very complicated manner. At first,