OBSTETRICAL FISHES. 69 



familiar to many; the female of which animal has 

 an extraordinary provision for protecting her eggs. 

 The ova, in a very tender state, are no sooner pro- 

 truded, than, with the assistance of the male, they 

 are introduced into various small cells on her back, 

 vrhen she hastens into the water, where the inte- 

 guments swell, the cells become closed and promi- 

 nent, and here the young remain for about eighty 

 days, until they have completed their metamor- 

 phosis, and issue forth afresh, as perfect toads. 

 Now, something nearly akin to this happens in 

 some fish ; with this difference, as in the instance 

 above alluded to, that this obstetrical function is 

 in them performed not by the female, but the male. 

 In these fishes the males, on the under part of their 

 body, are provided with separate hemispherical de- 

 pressions, arranged in several rows, all the females 

 being destitute of them; and the ova being extruded 

 by the latter, are deposited in these depressions, 

 and are thus for a time borne and protected by the 

 males. This remarkable provision has been de- 

 scribed by several authors in some species of the 

 Pipe-fish ; and Cuvier has noticed it as occurring in 

 the genus Aspredo, belonging to the Silurida?. 



The subject on which we have so long dwelt, and 

 which we must now dismiss, naturally leads to the 

 somewhat associated one of Parental Care, and the 

 various means and methods in which this, one of 

 the strongest of Nature's instincts, is exhibited and 

 expressed. It is very generally alleged that fishes 



