PARENTAL CARE AMONG FRESH-WATER FISHES. 



437 



indeed, the spawn is so wound up that the fishermen reel it off, at least that of 

 the perke, from the reeds in lakes. 



The larger glanis spawns in deep waters, some at the depth of a fathom ; the 

 smaller in shallower places, especially among the roots of willows or some other 

 tree, and also among the reeds, or the mosses. 



They copulate, sometimes a very large with a very small one, and bringing 

 the parts together which some call the navel, and through which they discharge 

 the seed, the females the eggs and the males the sperma. All the eggs that are 

 mingled with the sperma become generally on the first day white and larger, 

 and a little later the eyes of the fishes become visible. These at first, in all 

 fishes as also in other animals, are early conspicuous on account of their size. 

 And those of the eggs that the sperm does not touch, as in the case of sea- 

 fishes, are useless and sterile. 



But in these fertile eggs, as the fishes grow larger, a kind of husk separates. 

 And this is the envelope that encloses the egg and the young fish. When the 

 sperm has mingled with the egg the spawn becomes more viscous among the 

 roots, or wherever it may have been deix)sited. And where the greatest quantity 

 is deposited the male guards the eggs, and the female, having spawned, departs. 

 The growth of the glanis from the egg is very slow, wherefore the male keeps 



FiiJ. 25. — Aristotle's catfish ( Paras il urn ft uristuttliii) . After Nature. 



watch forty or fifty days, that the young may not be devoured by the fishes that 

 happen to be in their neighborhood. 



Aristotle incidentally adds, in subsequent paragraphs, that " the 

 eggs of the glanis become as large as the seed of the orobos " (sec. 

 5) — that is, the millet — and that none of the fresh- vYater fishes "ex- 

 cept the glanis watch their eggs " (sec. 6). 



How the eggs are taken care of after spawning is told in a later 

 book (Book IX, chap. 25, sec. 6) : 



Of the river fishes, the male glanis takes great care of its young. For- the 

 female, having brought forth, departs ; but the male, where the greatest deposit 

 of eggs has been formed, remains by them watching, rendering no other service 

 except keeping off other fishes from destroying the young. He does this for 

 forty or fifty days, until the young are sufficiently grown to escape from the 

 other fishes. And he is known to the fishermen wherever he may chance to 

 be watching his eggs ; for he keeps off the fishes by rushing movements, and by 

 making a noise and moaning. And he remains by the eggs with so much of 

 natural affection that the fishermen, when the eggs adhere to deep roots, bring 



