108 ALBACORA 



Before I met Luis Rivas my knowledge of the sexual 

 habits of fish was pretty well summed up in those four 

 lines plus another poem by a rather unusual Greek 

 named Oppian who lived in the time of Marcus Aurelius 

 and was fascinated by love among eels. Oppian wrote 

 with considerable frankness: 



Strange the formation of the eely race 

 That know no sex, yet love the close embrace 

 Their folded lengths around each other twine 

 Twist amorous knots and slimy bodies join; 

 Till the close strife brings off a frothy juice, 

 The seed that must their wriggling kind produce. 

 Regardless, they their future offspring leave. 

 And porous sands the spumy drops receive. 

 That genial bed impregnates all the heap. 

 And little eelets soon begin to creep. 



Basically, Luis Rivas assured me, Ogden Nash's 

 observations are more generally valid than those of 

 Oppian. A typical watery orgy involving, perhaps, sun- 

 fish consists only of gentle bumping. The male bumps 

 the female repeatedly, helping her to extrude her ova, 

 meanwhile helping himself to extrude his sperm. With 

 varying amounts of bumping and violence, this is the 

 fundamental pattern of seagoing sex. But there are some 

 fascinating variations. The sea lampreys, for example, 

 migrate to a clear shallow stream, hundreds of miles 

 up rivers, usually attaching themselves to other fish by 

 the suction of their mouths. Before doing anything else. 



