8 ANCIENT IDEAS AS TO FISH. [CHAP. i. 



montfield salmon-breeding ponds was dedicated, by Mr. Eobert 

 Buist, to a solution of this question, with what result may 

 be easily guessed. The old theory, so stoutly maintained 

 by Mr. Tod Stoddart and others, that it is contrary both to 

 fact and reason that fish can differ from land animals in. 

 the matter of the fructification of their eggs, was signally 

 defeated, and the question conclusively settled at the ponds 

 in a very simple way namely, by placing in the breeding- 

 boxes a quantity of salmon eggs which had not been brought 

 into contact with the milt, and which rotted away ; proving 

 emphatically that the sexes do not come into alliance at 

 the time of spawning, and that there is no way of render- 

 ing the eggs fruitful unless they are brought into immediate 

 contact with the milt. Curious ideas used to prevail on 

 this branch of natural history. Herodotus observes of the 

 fish of the Nile, that at the season of spawning they move 

 in vast multitudes towards the sea ; the males lead the 

 way, and emit the engendering principle in their passage; 

 this the females absorb as they follow, and in consequence 

 conceive, and when their ova are deposited they are conse- 

 quently matured into fry. Linnseus backed up this idea, and 

 asserted that there could be no impregnation of the eggs of any 

 animal out of the body, and as fish have no organs of genera- 

 tion, there was in the mind of the great naturalist no more 

 feasible explanation of their mode of reproduction than that 

 given in Beloe's Herodotus. It is this wonderfully exceptional 

 principle in the life of fish that has given rise to the art of 

 pisciculture i.e. the artificial impregnation of the eggs of fish 

 forcibly exuded from these animals, which, as will be fully 

 explained in another portion of this work, are brought into con- 

 tact with the milt, independent altogether of the animal. 



The principle of fish life which brings the male and female 

 together at the period of spawning is unknown. It is supposed 

 by some naturalists that fish do not gather into shoals till they 



