EGGS OF THE SHARK. 



667 



Fig. 326. 



tion to the female sexual apparatus, namely, an oviduct, by which the 

 germ is seized on its escape from the ovarium, and furnished with the 

 additional covering necessary in such fishes for the security of the fetus. 



(1850.) In these genera the folds of the ovarian membrane become 

 less extensively spread out, and, from the size of the yelks of the eggs 

 formed therein, the organ assumes a racemose appearance. The ovaries 

 now form two large bunches placed on each side of the spine ; and the 

 ova when mature would necessarily escape into the abdominal cavity, as 

 those of the Lamprey and Eel do, were they not seized by the patulous 

 orifices of the two long and membranous oviducts whereby they are con- 

 veyed out of the body. 



(1851.) There is, moreover, in the CHOKDROPTERYGIAN FISHES, a 

 necessity for defending the young, during the earlier stages of their 

 growth, by means which it would have been quite foreign to the pur- 

 poses of Nature to have adopted in the other division of this extensive 

 class. The earth is peopled only at its surface, and the vegetable ban- 

 quet there spread is abundantly sufficient for the support of terrestrial 

 beings. The ocean, however, 

 being densely populated at every 

 assignable depth, could never 

 have supplied vegetable food to 

 anything like the extent re- 

 quired to satisfy her progeny ; 

 hence therefore the necessity 

 for that astonishing fertility so 

 remarkable in the osseous fishes. 

 Nine millions of ova have been 

 calculated to be spawned at a 

 birth by a single Cod-fish : such 

 spawn, being naked and unpro- 

 tected, is eagerly devoured by 

 thousands of hungry mouths, or 

 the feeble young soon fall a prey 

 to countless voracious perse- 

 cutors. If, however, it was ob- 

 viously requisite that the pro- 

 geny of osseous fishes should be 

 thus multitudinous in order to 

 provide a sufficiency of needful 

 food, it is equally clear that it would have been incompatible with the 

 design of the Creator that the ravenous Sharks should be endowed with 

 equal fecundity : their eggs are consequently few in number ; and, in 

 proportion to their scarcity, jealous precaution must be taken to ensure 

 the safety of the included young, in order to prevent the complete 

 extinction of the race. 



Egg of the Shark. 



