156 THE HISTOET OF ANIMALS. [fi. fl- 



the female departs as soon as she has spawned. The develop 

 ment of the ovum of the glanis proceeds the most slowly, for 

 the male remains by them for forty or fifty days, in order 

 that they may not be devoured by fish chancing to come 

 that way. 



5. Next to this is the cyprinus. The ova, however, of 

 these which are preserved escape very quickly. The deve 

 lopment in some of the small fish takes place on the third 

 day, and the ova upon which the seminal fluid has fallen 

 begin to increase on the same day, or shortly afterwards. 

 The ova of the glanis become as large as the seed of the 

 orobus. Those of the cyprinus and that class, about the 

 size of millet. The ova of these fish are produced and deve 

 loped in this manner. 



6. The chalcis assembles in great numbers to deposit its 

 ova in deep water. The fish which is called tilon deposits 

 its ova near the shore, in sheltered places ; this fish also is 

 gregarious. The cyprinus, balerus, and all others, so to 

 say, hasten into shallow water to deposit their ova, and thir 

 teen or fourteen males often follow a single female, and when 

 the female has deposited her ova and departed, the males 

 that follow her sprinkle their semen upon them. The majo 

 rity of the ova are lost, for the female scatters them abroad 

 as she is moving forward, unless they fall upon any sub 

 stance, and are not carried away by the stream. IS one of 

 them, except the glanis, watch their ova, unless the cyprinua 

 meets with them in great numbers, when, they say, that this 

 fish watches them. 



7. All the male fish have semen, except the eel, and this 

 one has neither semen nor ova. The cestreus migrates from 

 the sea into lakes and rivers ; the eel, on the contrary, leaves 

 them for the sea. Most fish, therefore, as I observed, pro 

 ceed from ova. 



CHAPTEB XIV. 



1. SOME originate in mud and sand : even of those kinds which 

 originate in sexual intercourse and ova, some, they say, have 

 appeared both in other marshy places and in those which once 

 surrounded Cnidus, which became dry under the influence of 

 the dog-star, and all the mud was parched up, but with the 

 first rains the waters returned, and small fish appeared with 



