Chap. 74.] GENEEATIOK OF FISHES. 461 



but it is evidently the fact that individuals '''^ among them are 

 attacked by maladies, from the emaciated appearance that many 

 present, while at the same moment others of the same species 

 are taken quite remarkable for their fatness. 



CHAP. 74. (50.) THE GENEEA.TION OF FISHES. 



The curiosity and wonder which have been excited in man- 

 kind by this subject, will not allow me any longer to defer 

 giving an account of the generation of these animals. Fishes 

 couple by nibbing their bellies" against one another ; an ope- 

 ration, however, that is performed with such extraordinary 

 celerity as to escape the sight. Dolphins''* also, and other 

 animals of the cetaceous kind, couple in a similar manner, 

 though the time occupied in so doing is somewhat longer. The 

 female fish, at the season for coupling, follows the male, and 

 strikes against its belly with its muzzle ; while the male in its 

 turn, when the female is about to spawn, follows it and devours''^ 

 the eggs. But with them, the simple act of coupling is not 

 sufficient''^ for the purposes of reproduction ; it is necessary 

 for the male to pass among the eggs which the female has pro- 

 duced, in order to sprinkle them with its vitalizing fluid. This 

 does not, however, reach all the eggs out of so vast a multi- 

 tude ; indeed, if it did, the seas and lakes would soon be filled, 

 seeing that each female produces these eggs in quantities in- 

 numerable.''' 



■'^2 CuYier says, that there are some maladies by which individuals are 

 attacked ; but that it is not uncommonly the case that certain species are 

 attacked universally, as it were, by a sort of epidemic. There was an 

 instance of this, he says, in the lake of the valley of Montmorency, where 

 numbers of the fish were suddenly to be seen floating dead on the surface, 

 the skin of which was covered with red spots, while at the same time their 

 flesh had become disagreeable to the taste, and unwholesome. 



■'s Cuvier says, that this is not the case in general; but that some, 

 more especially those which are viviparous, actually do couple ; while, on 

 the other hand, in most, the male does nothing else but besprinkle with the 

 milt the eggs which the female has deposited, as is stated by Pliny a little 

 further on. 



'* These belong to the cetacea ; which, as Cuvier says, are now uni- 

 versally placed among the mammifera, and not among the fishes. They 

 couple, he says, in the same manner as quadrupeds do in general. 



'5 As Aristotle says, " from those that are left the fishes are produced." 



'6 Aristotle, Hist. Anira. B. vi. c. 12. 



'■^ It has been calculated, Cu\'ier says, that a female cod, or sturgeon, 

 produces in a year more than one hundred thousand eggs. 



