GENERALRBMARKSONFISH. 43 



• iluction of viviparous fish, the Shark, for instance, and others 

 that produce their young alive, as they are of little interest 

 to the anginas far as sport is concerned. 



Natur^sts who confine themselves closely to in-door studies, 

 sometimes adopt general rules and construct theories, to which 

 observers of less scientific knowledge, but with more frequent 

 opportunities for observation, find many exceptions. 



One would conclude from the writings of ichthyologists; 

 that fish always desert their ova after fecundation, and, with 

 slight precaution against enemies or accident, leave them to 

 their fate; never caring for, or protecting their ova. It is 

 true that many families, including the Salmonidse, are reck- 

 lessly improvident of their fecundated spawn ; male Trout have 

 been found with their stomachs full of the roe of their asso- 

 ciates on the same spawning-bed. But to the rule which in- 

 door naturalists suppose to be general, there are many excep- 

 tions ; some of them interesting cases of provident care in the 

 protection of the impregnated spawn, and even of maternal 

 solicitude' for their young. We might instance that of the 

 little Sunfish, which spawns in the month of June, around 

 the gravelly shores of mill-ponds, removing the pebbles and 

 twigs to the margin of its bed, which is frequently two or 

 three feet in diameter, piling them up a few inches as a ram- 

 part to its fortress, driving off all intruders, and keeping 

 watch and ward until the young are hatched. The little Eed 

 Fin, which spawns in communities, is frequently observed 

 by the trout fisher constructing its mound of pebbles with 

 skill and care. Scores or hundreds of them may be seen work- 

 ing together assiduously, piling up alternate layers of gravel 

 and impregnated spawn, until the top of the heap is some- 

 times twelve or fifteen inches high, and its base three or four 

 feet in diameter, leaving it a mass teeming with embryo life. 

 The common Catfish of our mill-ponds and ditches may fre- 



