328 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



what is also A^ery certain is, that, in another passage, jElian applies 

 this name to our Silouros of the Danube ; and Pliny makes the same 

 application, and even employs it in translating the very passages of 

 Aristotle.' * 



" ' What Aristotle relates in detail, and in two passages, of the care 

 which the male Silourus takes of the eggs of the female, borders on 

 the marvellous. According to him, the large Silouri deposit them in 

 deep waters ; the smaller among the roots of willows and other 

 trees, among the reeds or even the mosses. The female, having laid 

 them, leaves them, but the male guards and defends them ; and as the 

 eggs are long in developing, he continues this care forty or fifty 

 days.' t 



" Within the last ten years, much unexpected information has been 

 collected by naturalists themselves, no longer borrowed from indirect 

 observation, but ascertained while tracing their embryonic growth. 

 Among these investigations, none has attracted so much attention 

 as that of Coste, who observed that the Sticklebacks of Europe build 

 a very neatly constructed nest, in which the eggs are deposited, the 

 parents sitting upon and watching by them until the young are 

 hatched. This fact, however, had already been noticed more than thirty 

 years ago, and recorded in the Isis of Oken. Von Martens had made 

 similar observations upon a species of Gobius, found in the Lagunes 

 of Venice. But from want of sufficiently minute illustrations, these 

 facts hardly attracted notice, until the full and extensive accounts of 

 Coste, accompanied with numerous drawings, not only removed all 

 doubt respecting the care which some fishes take of their progeny, 

 but revived extensively the interest in such investigations. 



" Since I have been in the United States, my attention has been par- 

 ticularly directed to this subject, again and again, by the numerous 

 reports which have reached me, that there are in this country several 

 species of fishes which take care of their young in a similar way, be- 

 longing to the genera Catostomus, Exoglossum, Pomotis,and Pimelodus. 

 Of Exoglossum and Catostomus I have had no opportunity thus far to 

 observe the habits with sufficient minuteness to ascertain which of the 

 numerous species of the latter genus takes such care of its young, and 

 in what way this is performed ; but it is reported of Exoglossum, that 



* Cuvier, Histoire des Poissons, Liv. XVIT. c. 1, Vol. XIV. pp. 344, 345. 

 t Ibid. pp. S.'iO, 3.51. 



