FISH IN GENERAL. 31 



are with mammifera, and still more with birds. Several 

 species spawn in winter ; it is towards autumn that herrings, 

 having frequented our northern and eastern coasts since the 

 month of April, first begin to scatter their roes and milts on 

 the south side, and on the French shores. It is in the north 

 that the class of fish displays its most astonishing fecundity ; 

 not so much in the variety of species as in the multitude of 

 individuals of a species, and the sea nowhere else produces an 

 abundance offish, approaching to the myriads of herring and 

 cod emanating from that quarter. 



The sexual emotions of fish, cold as their own blood, indi- 

 cate only individual wants. Few species are destined to 

 pair, and enjoy connubial gratifications; the males, in others, 

 seek the roes when spawned, instead of the females ; they 

 are reduced to fecundate eggs without a knowledge of the 

 mother, and without seeing the produce. The joys of mater- 

 nity are equally denied to the greater number of species ; 

 some only bear their eggs for a given time ; with scarcely an 

 exception, fish do not construct a nest ; they neither feed nor 

 defend their young ; in short, their economy, even in the 

 smallest details, is totally the reverse of that of birds. 



The creatures of the sky distinctly survey an immense 

 horizon ; their acute hearing appreciates every sound, every 

 intonation ; and their voice is empowered to reproduce them. 

 If their bills be hard, if their bodies be covered with down, 

 to protect them from cold in the elevated regions of flight, yet 

 according to Cuvier, all the delicacy of touch is found in their 

 feet. They enjoy all the sweets of conjugal and of parental af- 

 fection ; execute all the duties thereto belonging with courage; 

 mates defend each other ; both defend their offspring ; a sur- 

 prising art is shown in the construction of their habitation ; the 

 joint labours of both executed in the proper season. While 

 the female broods over the eggs with admirable constancy, the 

 male, from an ardent lover, is converted into an attentive hus- 



