30 THE WASTE OF LIFE 



There is a fair analogy traceable between the spawn 

 of fishes and the seeds of plants, not only in the fact 

 that both are detached from the parent in an inert 

 condition and left to take their chances of development, 

 but in the provision of special means of defence for 

 such spawn or seed as is produced in sparing quantity, 

 and in the defenceless condition of spawn or seed pro- 

 duced in enormous quantity. 



As many as 7,635,000 ova have been counted in the 

 roe of a single sturgeon, 3,500,000 in that of a halibut, 

 and 9,344,000 in that of a cod. It is not contemplated 

 that more than an exceedingly small percentage of 

 these eggs should ever arrive at adolescence ; they are 

 therefore left absolutely defenceless at the mercy of 

 the ocean currents. On the other hand, the skate lays 

 only a few eggs, which are shed in pairs, each egg being 

 enclosed in a rectangular purse three or four inches 

 long, formed of a substance like leather, or, when dry, 

 of horn, affording perfect protection to the embryo 

 within. I do not know that even the cuttle-fish is able 

 to penetrate this singular defence. 



As in the ova of fishes, so in the seeds of plants, 

 the size of the ova or seed is no guide to that 

 of the fish or plant to be hatched from it. The 

 ova of the stickle-back is many times larger than 

 that of a codfish, and it would take a hundred 

 seeds of one of the mammoth trees of Mariposa 

 (Sequoia gigantea) to form the bulk of a single peach 

 stone. 



Fishes, with very few exceptions, divest themselves 

 of all responsibility for their offspring as soon as the 



