46 OF FISHES IN GENERAL. 



theory, fpeculation, and conje£lure. Hence we are no 

 fooner free of one difficulty, than we are met by another 

 equally perplexing and infurmountable. It has long 

 been a queftion, among philofophers, whether fifhes are 

 produced by fpontaneous generation *. That they are, 

 an ancient naturalift pretends to have proved by his own 

 experiments and obfervations f . There is, fays he, in 

 the vicinity of Pifa^ and furrouiided, on every fide, by 

 hills, a place, into which the w^aters of no fountain, 

 ftreain, or lake, ever flowed ; a place, which no moifture, 

 except the rain from the clouds, evfr watered. A few 

 days before my arrival at this fpot, a copious ihower of 

 rain had overflowed it with water, and nature herfelf 

 had fupplied it with fifhes, among v^'hich vafl numbers 

 of carp were obferved. The fame thing, he adds, is 

 fcen in many pools in France^ into which no (lock, or 

 original, of the many various fiflies they contain, was 

 ever placed. 



Another philofopher has adopted the fame opinion 

 concerning the fpontaneous produftion of fifli ; becaufe, 

 in ponds newly dug out, fiflies have been obferved dur- 

 ing the firfl; year j and, in fucceeding ones, many other 

 different kinds, although none had been originally tranf- 

 ported thither J. It is a phenomenon in Nature, for 

 which it is indeed difficult to account, but notwith- 

 llanding an incontrovertible fa6l, that in flagnating pools 

 occafioned by the rain in Bombay^ which have no com- 

 munication with any river, or the fea, fiflics are gene- 

 rated, of which many perfons have eaten, and which, 



upoa 



* 'Wlllougliby, lib. I. cap. ix. 



f Rondeletius (ie Pifcib. Jib. I. cap. iy, 



I Albertus magnus apud Gefnerum^ 



