CHAPTER XXI. 



SPAWNING. 



I marvel how the Bah live in the sea. 



Why, as men do aland ; the great ones eat lip the little ones." — 



Pekici.es. 



A few general words will suffice to show how much room there is 

 for interesting enquiry in connection with the reproduction of 

 fishes, and to what good use information on the subject can and 

 has been turned. Most readers will be aware that is the case of 

 salmon and trout the female produces eggs without any connection 

 with the male, and when they are ripe within her, scoops out a 

 hollow in the gravel to receive them, and as she exudes them the 

 male or cock salmon, who waits upon her, ejects over them a milk- 

 like fluid called milt, which fertilizes them, and in which the 

 spermatazoa can be detected by the microscope. It has lately 

 been ascertained* that the ova of trout are covered with an 

 adhesive matter which makes them keep more or less together, ami 

 therefore more within the influence of the milt, than if they were 

 separated, and which makes them adhere to stones, so that they are 

 not in danger of being washed down, even by a strong stream, and 

 do not need to be covered as was formerly thought. Again the 

 spermatazoa are observed under the microscope to radiate in the 

 most regular order, so that nothing escapes them. Tliis manner 

 of breeding makes it comparatively easy for man to capture male 

 ami female fish, express the ova of the latter when ripe into a 

 backet of water by very gentle pressure of the stomach, and then 

 similarly cause the male to emit milt, and stirring the two up 

 together to fertilize the eggs, and hatch and rear them under pro- 

 tection. It has been calculated that, when exposed to the ordinary 

 vicissitudes of nature, only one in a thousand salmon ova ever 



• C. C. Capel, in "The Field" of 15th January, 1881; and, previously, 

 Ilr Frank Buekland. 



