HERODOTUS, ARISTOTLE ON SPAWNING = 339 
way, and drop their milt as they go, while the females, following 
close behind, eagerly swallow it down. From this they con- 
ceive, and when, after passing some time in the sea, they begin 
to be in spawn, the whole shoal sets off on its return to its 
ancient haunts. Now, however, it is no longer the males, 
but the females, which take the lead: they swim in front in 
a body, and do exactly as the males did before, dropping little 
by little their grains of spawn as they go, while the males in 
their rear devour the grains, each one of which is a fish. A 
portion of the spawn escapes and is not swallowed by the 
males, and hence come the fishes which grow afterwards to 
maturity. ... 
“When the Nile begins to rise, the hollows in the land and 
the marshy spots near the river are flooded before any other 
places by the percolation of the water through the river-banks ; 
and these, almost as soon as they become pools, are found to be 
full of numbers of little fishes. I think that I understand how 
it is this comes to pass. On the subsidence of the Nile the year 
before, though the fish retired with the retreating waters, they 
had first deposited their spawn in the mud upon the banks: 
and so, when at the usual season the water returns, small fry 
are rapidly engendered out of the spawn of the preceding year. 
So much concerning the fish.” 
And was the great zoologist Aristotle! more accurate in 
his suggestion as to spawning? ‘‘Some surmise that the 
female becomes impregnated by swallowing the seminal fluid 
of the male. And there can be no doubt that this proceeding 
on the part of the female is often witnessed, for at the breeding 
season the female follows the males and perform the act and 
strike the males with their mouths under the belly, and the 
males are thereby induced to part with the sperm sooner and 
more plentifully.”’ 
The Pahlavi texts tell us that at spawning time or season of 
excitement fish in pairs travel to and fro a mile in running 
water. In this coming and going they rub their bodies together, 
and a kind of sweat drops out between, and both become 
pregnant. 
1N.4., V. 5. 
