30 A NOVEL THEORY OP 



seek their food with avidity preying upon very 

 minute insects and larvae, though there are some 

 larvas which are said to prey, in turn, upon them, 

 while they are also the prey of all larger fishes, 

 even those of their own species." 



A new theory of the spawning of salmon, and 

 we suppose of all other fishes a theory totally 

 at variance with all received and time-honoured 

 notions of the economy of this interesting portion 

 of creation (not, perhaps, the better for being 

 time-honoured) has recently been propounded 

 by Mr. Stoddart.* This gentleman is of opinion 

 that fishes do not differ from land animals in their 

 manner of copulation; that impregnation of the 

 female takes place in the usual way, by actual 

 contact of the sexes, immediately after spawning ; 

 and that this is the chief purpose for which the 

 male fish seeks the female at the spawning bed, 

 instead of that of shedding his milt upon the ex- 

 cluded ova. " It is not," says he, " an impregna- 

 tion of the shedded or flowing ova that takes 

 place, but an impregnation of the ovaria after 

 spawning ; and this for the purpose of endowing 



* See The Angler's Companion to the Rivers and Lakes 

 of Scotland. The author of this work is an excellent writer 

 on piscatorial subjects, besides being a powerful poet, and 

 a very able and enthusiastic " brother of the angle." 



