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Show 836 ON THE GESTATION OF THE PINE-MARTEN. [Dec 4, five days when in an embryonic state and left the nest in eighteen days. Soon after hatching the larva was provided with great bunches of protruding gill-filaments, which hung down as a blood-red beard. The yolk-sac became drawn out into a long cylindrical bag, which was completely absorbed by the time the larva left the nest. The larvae while in the nest continually came to the surface and took air into the lung-like swim-bladder. The nests of Heterotis niloticus were also found. These were built on tbe swamp-bottom in two feet of water. They measured four feet across the walls reaching the surface of the water. The fish was observed making its nest, which, when finished, was perfectly round and quite smooth. The larvae soon after hatching formed a swarm in the centre of the nest, and were at that stage provided with long protruding gill-filaments. Another remarkable fish, Sarcodaces odo'e Bl, was found breeding in the same swamps. It laid its eggs in masses of foam, which floated on the surface of the water. The hatched larvae were provided with adhesive structures on tbe front of the head, with which they hung to the underside of the surface. Nests were also found containing eggs which apparently belonged to Hyperopisus bebe Lacep., one of the Mormyridce. These nests were scooped out from the swamp-bottom ; tbe eggs were attached to the rootlets thus laid bare. Tbe hatched larvae were provided with six cement-glands on the surface of the head : by these a delicate rope of mucus was spun, often nearly the length of the body of the larva, by which the larva hung suspended from the rootlets until the yolk-sac was absorbed. This paper will be printed entire in the Society's ' Transactions.' The following papers were read:- 1. Note on the Gestation of the Piue-Marteu. B y A. H . C O C K S , F.Z.S. [Received August 21, 1900.] Pine-Martens (Mustela martes) first bred in my collection in 1882, a note on which was published in the ' Zoologist' for 1883, p. 203. Various details conceruing the rate of growth of the. young were recorded, including tbe interesting fact, which seems to have been previously unsuspected, that the young are at first perfectly white. Since then other litters of this species have been bred in m y collection ; but as we never could discover when the female came in season (and have never even yet seen this species pairiug), all attempts at breeding were extremely hazardous : the allowing of a pair to run together was apt to result in the death of the female, in consequence of one or more of the long canines of the male penetrating her brain, the damage being inflicted so instantaneously that there w as no possibility of a timely separation. At last, this year, w e noticed little mouthfuls of short straw |