Cii a it. xn. .1 Very /' igement. 271 



matrimonial overtures till he has provided for the becoming main- 

 tenance of a wife, and do girl stickle-back with any self-respect 

 would think of accepting him without a furnished house. The 

 murral takes up it- quarters in a hollow in the bank, and protects 

 oung bj keeping them in a crowd, and swimming under them 

 till about - inches long, when, like cither predatory animals, it 

 kills them if they do not separate. Some sharks bring forth young 

 alive, some deposit them in a purse with tendrils for attachment 

 to seaweeds, and their young flee for refuge into their mouths. 

 in cat-fish, Arius, I have observed, hatch their ova in their 

 mouths, and keep them there ever after being hatched. Dr. Day 

 and I examined over -"tin of these fish in company on one occasion, 

 besides the observations we had each made at other times 

 separately. The conclusions we came to were that the female 

 seemingly holds the eggs as she extrudes them in her two large 

 cup-like ventral tins, where apparently they are fecundated, and 

 whence they are taken by the male, who thenceforward keeps them 

 in his mouth, never eating till they are hatched. The eggssink in 

 water, and are about half ( - 5 and' 6) an inch in diameter, consequently 

 the males were found on an average to carry not more than 

 16 ova each; and the female laying about 50, she seemingly 

 occupies three husbands. Some friends were going over my little 

 museum with me one day, and a lady, hearing how the bringing 

 up of the children was. in this case, left unreservedly to the 

 devoted husbands, turned reproachfully to her husband, "A very 

 " proper arrangement." Thus was the poor hen-pecked Arius held 

 up as an example. Some Bea-fish spawn in the open sea, leaving 

 their ova, which float, to he hatched on the surface, some in the 

 sand, some among the rocks and seaweed. 



As a gem red rule the ova of fresh-water fish sink to the bottom, 

 and the ova of Bea-fish float It is a wise provision that it is so. 

 The ova of river-fish require to reach the bottom to prevent tl iei i 

 being washed down by the stream, that would otherwise soon carry 

 them to the salt water and destruction. If the ova of sea-fish 

 similarly sank, they would, at the bottom of the deep sea, lose the 

 life-giving influences of that heat and light which they gain by 

 floating on or near the suit 



Remembering this great leading fact, and remembering, also, 

 another matter in connection with the sea which, though well 



