CHAP. xxin. Three Husbands. 339 



self-respect would think of accepting him without a furnished house. 

 The murral takes up its quarters in a hollow in the bank, and protects 

 its young by keeping them in a crowd, and swimming under them till 

 about two inches long, when, like other 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. Certain cat-fish, Arms, 

 I have observed, hatch their ova in their mouths, and keep them there 

 even after being hatched. Dr. Day and I examined over 500 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 fins, 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 eggs sink 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 reproach- 

 fully to her husband, " A very proper arrangement." Thus was the 

 poor henpecked Arius held up as an example. Some sea-fish spawn 

 in the open sea, leaving their ova, which float, to be hatched on the 

 surface, some in the sand, some among the rocks and seaweed. 



As a general rule the ova of fresh-water fish sink to the bottom, and 

 the ova of sea-fish float. It is a wise provision that it is so. The ova 

 of river-fish require to reach the bottom to prevent their 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 surface. 



z 2 



