462 PLINY'S NATTJBAL HISTOBT. [Book IX, 



(51.) The eggs 78 of fishes grow in the sea; some of them 

 with the greatest rapidity, those of the muraena, for instance ; 

 others, again, somewhat more slowly. Those among the flat 

 fishes, 79 whose tails or stings are not in the way, as well as 

 those of the turtle kind, couple the one upon the other: 

 the polypus by attaching one of its feelers to the nostrils 80 

 of the female, the ssepia and loligo, by means of the tongue ; 

 uniting the arms, they then swim contrary ways; these last also 

 bring forth at the mouth. The polypi, 81 however, couple 

 with the head downwards towards the ground, while the rest 

 of the soft 82 fish couple backwards in the same manner as the 

 dog ; cray-fish and shrimps do the same, and crabs employ the 

 mouth* 



Erogs leap the one upon the other, the male with its fore- 

 feet clasping the armpits of the female, and with its hinder 

 ones the haunches. The female produces tiny pieces of black 

 flesh, which are known by the name of gyrini, 83 and are only 



78 Cuvier says, that the eggs of the common fishes, of toads, frogs, &c., 

 have no shells, but only a membranous tunic ; and when they have been 

 once fecundated, they imbibe the surrounding moisture, and increase till 

 they produce the animal. 



79 It is probable, Cuvier thinks, that this passage relates more especially 

 to the ray genus, but that there is no very positive knowledge as to the 

 mode in which they do couple. It is probable, he suggests, that they may 

 do it in the manner above mentioned, by the attrition of the belly. As to 

 the turtle genus, he says, it is certain that the male mounts the back of the 

 female ; and in some species the sternum of the male is concave, the better 

 to adapt itself to the convex callipash of the female. 



8 ' More properly, the physeter, passage, or orifice. 



81 Cuvier remarks, that this account of the coupling of the cephalopodes 

 is taken from Aristotle. He says, that he is not aware whether modern 

 observation has confirmed these statements, and almost doubts whether, 

 considering the organization of these animals, it is not almost more pro- 

 bable that they do not couple at all, and that the male, as in the case of 

 most other fishes, only fecundates the eggs after they have been deposited 

 by the female. 



82 Cuvier says, that whatever may be the sense in which the word 

 "mollia" is here taken, the assertion is not correct. The gasteropod 

 molluscs, he says, whether hermaphroditical, or whether of separate sexes, 

 couple side to side. The acephalous molluscs do not couple at all, and 

 each individual fecundates its own eggs. The Crustacea couple by attrition 

 of the belly. 



83 "Tadpoles." There is both truth and falsehood, Cuvier says, in the 

 statements here made relative to the tadpole. Frogs, he says, produce 

 eggs, from which the tadpole developes itself, with a tail like that of a fish. 

 The feet, however, are not produced by any bifurcation of the tail, but 



