HERODOTUS, ARISTOTLE ON SPAWNING 339 



way, and drop their milt as they go, while the females, following 

 close behind, eagerly swallow it down. From this they con- 

 ceive, and when, after passing some time in the sea, they begin 

 to be in spawn, the whole shoal sets off on its return to its 

 ancient haunts. Now, however, it is no longer the males, 

 but the females, which take the lead : they swim in front in 

 a body, and do exactly as the males did before, dropping little 

 by little their grains of spawn as they go, while the males in 

 their rear devour the grains, each one of which is a fish. A 

 portion of the spawn escapes and is not swallowed by the 

 males, and hence come the fishes which grow afterwards to 

 maturity. . . . 



" When the Nile begins to rise, the hollows in the land and 

 the marshy spots near the river are flooded before any other 

 places by the percolation of the water through the river-banks ; 

 and these, almost as soon as they become pools, are found to be 

 full of numbers of little fishes. I think that I understand how 

 it is this comes to pass. On the subsidence of the Nile the year 

 before, though the fish retired with the retreating waters, they 

 had first deposited their spawn in the mud upon the banks : 

 and so, when at the usual season the water returns, small fry 

 are rapidly engendered out of the spawn of the preceding year. 

 So much concerning the fish." 



And was the great zoologist Aristotle ^ more accurate in 

 his suggestion as to spawning ? " Some surmise that the 

 female becomes impregnated by swallowing the seminal fluid 

 of the male. And there can be no doubt that this proceeding 

 on the part of the female is often witnessed, for at the breeding 

 season the female follows the males and perform the act and 

 strike the males with their mouths under the belly, and the 

 males are thereby induced to part with the sperm sooner and 

 more plentifully." 



The Pahlavi texts tell us that at spawning time or season of 

 excitement fish in pairs travel to and fro a mile in running 

 water. In this coming and going they rub their bodies together, 

 and a kind of sweat drops out between, and both become 

 pregnant. 



1 N. H.. V. 5. 



