WASTE OF SEEDS AND EGGS. 15 



emitted from the female fish, the chances are more 

 than even that they will not be vitalized by coming 

 in contact with the living germs of the male fish, 

 and in case they do not, they are worthless, and if 

 not devoured by some other fish or insects, they 

 soon decay and are lost to sight. If the egg has 

 been properly vitalized, let us follow it, and see 

 some of the numerous dangers which beset it, before 

 it shall have changed its form into a fish. In the 

 first place, all kinds of fish are fond of spawn as food, 

 and consider it a great delicacy ; hence they are con- 

 stantly on the look-out for the tempting morsel. A 

 large number of water-bugs, reptiles, and many birds 

 and quadrupeds also, look upon spawn as a desirable 

 food, so that the eggs are in constant danger of being 

 devoured by some one of their many voracious ene- 

 mies. 



Though the egg may be fortunate enough to 

 escape destruction, as above described, " Dame For- 

 tune " must smile on it to a still further extent. If 

 the egg should happen to be carried along with the 

 current, and get covered with the sediment which is 

 constantly flowing in all streams, to a greater or 

 less extent, it would soon die from suffocation. In 

 order that it may hatch, it must lodge in some 

 secluded nook, where it will constantly be agitated 

 to a slight degree by the action of the water, or it 

 must lie directly over where a spring bubbles up, 

 and under these circumstances only, will the egg be 

 liable to produce a fish. We will suppose the egg 

 has escaped destruction, and the little prisoner has 

 broken through the shell. With many kinds offish, 

 when the young fry first emerges from the egg, it is 



