116 FISH HARVESTING. 
widened end of the ovary. But still I maintain 
that it fulfils a far more important duty. 
I fear I have been rather prolix in the 
foregoing descriptions, but I must plead the 
novelty and importance of the subject as my 
excuse. The most beautiful of all the species 
of these fish is the sapphire perch (so called 
by the traders), very plentiful in Puget’s Sound. 
Eighteen exquisitely beautiful mazarine-blue 
lines or stripes mark its entire length from 
head to tail; and above and below this line are a 
number of spots of most dazzling blue, arranged 
in acrescent shape, about the eyes and gill-covers. 
Between these spots the colour changes, as it does 
in the dolphin, throwing off a kind of phosphor- 
escent light of varying shades of gold, purple, and 
green—the back bright-blue, but darker than 
the stripes; the belly white, marked by golden- 
yellow streaks. 
But now for the most important feature in the 
history of these fish—that of bringing into the 
world their young alive, self-dependent, and self- 
supporting, as perfect in their minutest organ- 
isation as the parent-fish that gives them birth. 
The generative apparatus of the female fish when 
in a gravid state may be defined as a large bag 
or sac. lamifying over its surface may be seen 
