48 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



produce incredible numbers of eg-g-s. Above 36,000 

 have been counted in a herring*; 38,000 in a smelt; 

 1,000,000 in a sole ; 1,130,000 in a roach ; 3,000,000 

 in a species of sturgeon; 342,000 in a carp; 

 383,000 in a tench; 546,000 in a mackerel; 992,000 

 in a perch ; and 1,337,000 in a flounder. But of all 

 fishes hitherto discovered, the cod seems the most 

 fertile. One naturalist computes that it produces 

 more than 3,686,000 eggs ; another, 9,000,000; and 

 a third, 9,444,000. Here, tiien, are eleven fishes, 

 which probably, in the course of one season, will 

 produce above thirteen millions of eggs; which is a 

 number so astonishing and immense, that, without 

 demonstration, we could never believe it true *." 



The fecundity of insects is no less remarkable than 

 that of fishes. In some instances, particularly in 

 those already mentioned, the numbers produced from 

 the eggs of a single female, far exceed the progeny 

 of any other class of animals. It is this extraor- 

 dinary fecundity which, under favourable circum- 

 stances, produces countless swarms of insects that 

 give origin to the opinion of their being sponta- 

 neously generated by putrefaction, or brought in 

 some mysterious way by blighting winds. The 

 numerous accidents, however, to which insects are 

 exposed from the deposition of the eg;g till their final 

 transformation, tend to keep their numbers from 

 becoming excessive, or to reduce them when they 

 are at any time more than commonly numerous. 



* Introd. Observ. to Spallanzatii, xiv. 



