Natural History of the Shark. 355 



"The process of spawning has been described by various ob- 

 servers ■-' A pair of fish are seen to make a furrow, by working 

 up the gravel with their noses, rather against the stream, as a 

 Salmon^eannot work with his head down s ream, f- the wate. 

 then going into his gills the wrong way, drowns hira. When 

 the furrow is made, the male and female retire to a little 

 dista^ice, one to the one side, and the other to the other side of 

 theTrrow; they then throw themselves on their sides aga^n 

 come together, and rubbing against each other, both shed their 

 smwn into the furrow at the same time This process is not 

 S^eted at once; it requires from eight to twelve days for 

 them to lav all their spawn, and when they have done they be- 

 Sk^themJelves to the pools to recruit themselves. Three pairs 

 have been seen on the spawning bed at one time, and were closely 

 watched, while making the furrow and laymg the spawn *. 



We return for a moment from the river to the sea, to carry on 

 the instincts from sexual association to parental oversight, and 

 e'a d for a dependent offspring. We might expect that an ar- 

 rangement for the perpetuity of the species which left the eggs 

 aftef being fertilized Ld deposited in shallow waters to be per- 

 feSed by the heats of the ensuing summer (for the young do not 

 appear UU the middle of the year following, ^7 which time the 

 parents have returned to the sea and regained the deeps)-we 

 might expect that such an arrangement would hardly exhibit in- 

 Sinct, expanding into care and watchfulness on the part of the 

 mak parent. The history of the Lump-sucker {Cycloptems lum- 

 ;4 however is a remarkable instance of solicitude for the young 

 in the male. The CyclopteridcB are a family of fishes of exceed- 

 ngly Cited locomotive'^powers. To compensate for the defi- 

 cielly attending an organization fitted to make but small pro- 

 gress through the water, nature has bestowed upon them a 

 provision by which they attach themselves o other movmg ob- 

 Ss so as to transport themselves readily into different and 

 ktant feeding-places. They adhere by an ^PP^^^^us termed the 

 sucker, and hold so tenaciously to their place when fixed, that if 

 thev die in that position, adhesion contmues aft^r death; when 

 the fish however has no motive for maintaining this sullen tena- 

 city, upon a wet finger being applied to the part with which it 

 sucks, it holds on suspended, and on g^^^F^S ^\^^^^ f^'^t 

 he water, it instantly attaches itself to the hand. When Fabri- 

 cius related that the^Lump-suckers, m April or May, enter the 

 rocky bays of the Greenland coast for the purpose of spawmng ; 

 that the female, preceding the male, deposited the roe among the 

 larger Alg^ in the fissures of the rocks; that, followed by the 

 * YarreU quoting Ellis' on the Natural History of the Salaion. British 

 Fishes, vol. ii. 03* 



