VIVIPAROUS FISH. Ill 



fish. I had no longer anv doubt that the fish 



O v 



was viviparous, and that it was a true and normal 

 case of ovarian gestation. So much for my first 

 discovery; the details of my subsequent exami- 

 nations I shall again have occasion to refer to. 



It happened most curiously that a Mr. Jackson 

 (I believe a government officer of the United 

 States) was, about this same period, amusing 

 himself by fishing at Salsalita, and caught two 

 viviparous fish, a male and a female. On cutting 

 open the female, to obtain a piece of the belly for 

 bait, he, like myself, was astonished at seeing a 

 whole bevy of tiny fish come scrambling out, and 

 at first imagined, as I did, that they had been 

 swallowed. He immediately wrote a letter to 

 Professor Agassiz, sending the mutilated fish, 

 having previously satisfied himself that they had 

 not been devoured, and statin a; at length his sin- 



' O O 



gular discovery. The professor was astonished, 

 and disbelieved the possibility of the fish being 

 viviparous, imagining some error had crept into 

 the statement sent him by Mr. Jackson ; but other 

 fish in a similar state were subsequently obtained 

 by Mr. Carey, and forwarded to the learned 

 professor. The fact was then most undeniably 

 established, that this and many other species were 

 strictly viviparous. 



