114 FISH HARVESTING. 
they breed twice in the year. It is worthy. 
of remark that the young mature fish are very 
large, when compared with the size of the mother. 
In a female fish eleven inches in length, the 
young were three inches long—-the adult fish 
four-and-a-half inches high, the young an inch. 
The only instance I can find recorded of a 
viviparous fish bearing any analogy to the Hm- 
biotocide is the viviparous blenny (Zoarces vivi- 
parus, Cuv.). Of course I exclude the sharks . 
and rays. Of the viviparous blenny little or 
nothing appears to me to be known. On re- 
ference to Pennant’s ‘ British Zoology,’ all he 
says is, that it was discovered by Schonevelde, 
and that Sir Robert Sibbald afterwards found 
it on the Scotch coast, and it was mentioned by 
Linneus in his account of the Swedish Museum. 
I quote the following paragraph verbatim from 
Pennant’s ‘ British Zoology.’ Speaking of the 
blenny, he goes on to say: ‘It is viviparous, 
bringing forth two or three hundred young at a 
time. Its season of parturition is a little after the 
depth of winter; before midsummer it quits the 
bays and shores, and retires into the deep, where 
it is commonly taken. It comes into the mouth 
of the River Esk at Whitby, Yorkshire, where 
it is frequently taken from off the bridge.’ 
