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net fishermen, or those which employ fixed engines,* and in 
one district, at least, salutary laws have as a consequence been 
relaxed. Possibly the annihilation of the remainder of our 
salmon fisheries will be completed when the man who employs 
fixed engines knows no law but that of his own will, when he 
is permitted to fish when he likes, where he likes, and how he 
likes; when the agitator has induced the Legislature to abolish 
close time and other regulations now but too loosely attended 
to, and the manufacturer and miner are free to employ our 
streams to carry away their poisons and their refuse. But the 
fish themselves have not invariably acted in accordance with 
official theories and Home Office decisions, as they undoubtedly 
ought to have done, for they sometimes refuse to ascend fish 
_ passes which have received the sanction of the Inspectors of 
Fisheries, apparently, but of course erroneously, finding the 
gradient to be too steep. 
These and many other important considerations I must 
defer to a separate paper, restricting myself to-day to the 
function of ‘‘ breeding in fishes.” 
Fishes are dicecious, the sexes being normally present in 
different individuals. Some are monogamous, as the snake- 
headed and tropical Ophiocephalus, perhaps also our common 
pike, and many other forms. The majority, however, are 
polygamous, or perhaps mixogamous when the males and 
females congregate for breeding purposes, those of the former 
sex being in excess and several attending on one female, or 
even changing about to another. 
; _ Among most of the cartilaginous fishes, Chondropterygi, as 
sharks, rays, and skates, a congress takes place between the 
two sexes, the arrangement of the sexual organs being some- 
what similar to what obtains among the higher vertebrates. 
The male organs are mostly compact, of a circumscribed form, 
_ ® Fixed engines for fishing were declared a public nuisance at common 
law and ordered to be destroyed, but, when doing so, certain private rights 
‘in them were directed to be respected. All ought to have been at once 
made away with, the question of compensation being left to subsequent 
investigation. ; 
