PAIRING OF SALMON. 



63 



than the gratification of the sensual appetite: it is 

 social, individual, and, as it were, sentimental ; with 

 the crow it is said to be for life, the cock and hen 

 never separating, but when either loses his mate 

 the survivor enters upon perpetual celibacy. 



There is so obvious a difference between the 

 male and female salmon even in the water by day, 

 independent of the shape and colour, that the 

 pregnant big-bellied female can never be mistaken 

 for the male. 



Again it may be thought that the powers of one 

 male fish can hardly be equal to the fecundation of 

 such a mass of roe as 600,000 ; to this it may be 

 replied that Nature is as equal to the perfec- 

 tion and accomplishment of all her works as she 

 is wise, and in many particulars incomprehensible 

 to us ; in this case the wonderful wisdom of the 

 Creator is shown in a most miraculous degree ; the 

 organic moving particles (the supposed source, at 

 least assistant, of impregnation) in the milt of a 

 male fish is about seventeen times the number of 

 ovaria in the female ; the female codfish has up- 

 wards of nine million pea ; the milt of the male, 

 according to Leuwenhoek, contains 150,000 

 millions of living particles ; estimating the salmon, 

 then, after the same ratio, , if the roe contains 

 600,000 pea, the milt will contain 5,400,000, 

 which is a vast superfluity beyond what is neces- 

 sary for the purposes of nature, and serves as a 

 resource against all accidents and waste. 







