466 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTOBY. [Book IX. 



ones. It produces within itself 8 very soft eggs, which it then 

 transfers to another place in the uterus, and from that part 

 ejects them. The same is the case with all those fish to which 

 we have given the name of cartilaginous ; hence it is, that 

 these alone of all the fishes are at once viviparous and oviparous. 

 The male silurus 9 is the only fish among them all that watches 

 the eggs after they are brought forth, often for as long a period 

 as fifty days, that they may not be devoured by other fish. 

 The females of other kinds bring forth their eggs in the course 

 of three days, if the male has only touched them. 



CHAP. 76. FISHES THE BELLY OF WHICH OPENS IN SPAWNING, 

 AND THEN CLOSES AGAIN. 



The sea-needle, 10 or the belone, is the only fish in which the 

 multitude of its eggs, in spawning, causes the belly to open 

 asunder ; but immediately after it has brought forth, the wound 

 heals again : a thing which, it is said, is the case with the 

 blind- worm as well. The sea-mouse 11 digs a hole in the earth, 

 deposits its eggs there, and then covers them up. On the 

 thirtieth day it opens the hole, and leads its young to the 

 water. 



CHAP. 77. (52.) FISHES WHICH HAVE A WOMB ; THOSE WHICH 



IMPKEGNATE THEMSELVES. 



The fishes called the erythinus 12 and the channe 13 are said to 



8 All the chondropterygian fishes, Cuvier says, have, in addition to their 

 ovaries, real oviducts, which the ordinary fishes have not ; the lower part 

 of which, being detached, acts as the uterus, into which the eggs descend 

 when they have gained their proper size : and it is here that the young- 

 ones burst forth from the egg, when the parent animal is viviparous. 



9 Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. vi. c. 13, says the same of the glanis, or 

 silurus. 



10 The Syngnathus acus of Linnxus. This fish, Cuvier says, and in 

 general all of the same genus, has a channel situate under the tail, which 

 is opened by two moveable valves. In this they deposit their eggs at the 

 moment of excluding them. After this, the valves open, to give a passage 

 to the eggs, or the young enclosed in them. This circumstance, he says, 

 gave rise to the notion mentioned in the text. 



11 Mentioned in c. 35 of the present Book. Cuvier says that the sea 

 tortoises, or turtles, to which no doubt this animal belonged, do deposit 

 their eggs much in the way here mentioned. 



12 Both these fishes have been mentioned in c. 23 of the present Book. 



13 Pliny means to say, Cuvier says, that all these fish are to be looked 



