4 THE FISH OF DORSET. 



As their locality changes so does their food. Most are cannibals, 

 the larger living on the smaller, even of their own species, whilst 

 all are carnivorous (I am speaking particularly of sea fish) that 

 is, eating the flesh of some living thing, whether it he that of fish, 

 Crustacea, worms, molluscs, echinoderms, and the hundred and 

 one forms of life found at the bottom of the sea, provided it be 

 fresh. Some live entirely on other fish, like most of the mackerel 

 and shark tribe ; others, like most of the flat fishes, live on worms 

 and small Crustacea ; others, again, on shell-fish and crabs, like the 

 ray and the cat-fish ; while others, like the wrasses, get their 

 living off such forms of life as are found among and adhering 

 to rocks. 



The spawn of others forms the food of some species, and it is a 

 wonderful provision of nature that the ovum of most of our best food 

 fishes, when once impregnated, becomes so transparent that when 

 floating in mid-water it is almost invisible, and is thus protected. 



The form of the teeth and mouth generally gives one a very good 

 notion of what their principal food consists of. Their digestion is 

 very rapid, as is also their growth, but this latter depends a great 

 deal on the supply of food. They seem to arrive at maturity in 

 the second or third year. There is only one sea fish that I 

 know of that will eat vegetable food, and that is the grey mullet, 

 that at times eats the green silk-weed off the bottoms of boats; 

 even that may be for the sake of any small shells or creatures in 

 it. 



Their spawn and places of deposit vary immensely. In the 

 sharks the young are mostly brought forth alive, as also in the 

 monk fish. I once took a large monk fish in a trammel which 

 produced 24 young of about 8 or 9 inches long after it was 

 captured. The dog-fish mostly produce their eggs in oblong sacks 

 of a texture like horn, with long tendrils at each corner, by which 

 they attach them to sea weed, while in the rays these sacks are 

 nearly square and have only long points at each corner. In the 

 foregoing fish the production of eggs or young is not very great, 

 being only from two to about four dozen in a season, and they are 



