FISHES. 213 



able depths ; and some occupy various intermediate stations. 

 When we reflect on the great amount of animal life which the 

 ocean in its several zones of depth must thus support, and con- 

 sider that by far the greater number of young fishes never 

 attain maturity, but form the a])pointed food of their more 

 powerful neighbom's, it is obvious that the young fry nmst be 

 produced in numbers sufficient to bear this ceaseless destruc- 

 tion, and yet to have among them a sufHoient number of indi- 

 viduals which escape these })erils to attain a certain degree of 

 maturity, and, by the deposition of their ova, prevent the 

 species from perishing. And accordingly we find here, as in 

 every other department of nature, that He who framed the 

 miglity scale of created beings, has so arranged the living 

 mechanism, that the continual production is equal to the. con- 

 tinual waste. The number of ova which some of our native 

 fishes produce is so very astonishing that it would be regarded 

 with doubt, except on the most unimpeachable testimony. So 

 many as 280,000 have been taken from a Perch of only half a 

 pound weight. Mr. AV. Thompson found 101,935 ova in a 

 Lump-sucker {Cycloptents lumpus) of fifteen inches in length,* 

 and the Cod-fish is said to produce several millions. 



In general, with the deposition of the spawn thi; care of the 

 parents for their future offspring terminates ; but this is not 

 invariably the case. The statement of Aristotle, that there 

 was a fish {P/iycis) in the Mediterranean which makes a nest 

 and deposits its spawn therein, has been confirmed ; and Olivi 

 adds, that the male guards the female during the act of ovipo- 

 sition, and the j'oung fry during their development. Dr. Han- 

 cock has observed similar habits in some Demerara fishes 

 called " Hassars." " Both male and female remain by the side 

 of the nest till the spawn is hatched, with as much solicitude 

 as a hen guards her eggs ; and the}' courageously attack any 

 assailant. Hence the negroes frequently take them by put- 

 tinsr their hands into the water close to the nest ; on atntatinc 

 which, the male Ilassar springs furiously at them, and is thus 

 captured."! 



But we need not go so far as the West Indies to find ex- 



* Annals Nat. Hist , vol. iii. p. 44. 



t Ci»uoted in Owen's Lectures. A nest of the Ilassar, with the spawn 

 and the parent fish, is in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, 

 London. 



