462 
plint's fatueal histobt. 
[Boo"k IX, 
(51.) The eggs'''^ of fishes grow in the sea; some of them 
with the greatest rapidity, those of the mursena, for instance ; 
others, again, somewhat more slowly. Those among the flat 
fishes,'''^ whose tails or stings are not in the way, as well as 
those of the turtle kind, couple the one upon the other : 
the polypus by attaching one of its feelers to the nostrils 
of the female, the seepia and loligo, by means of the tongue ; 
uniting the arms, they then swim contrary ways; these last also 
bring forth at the mouth. The polypi, however, couple 
with the head downwards towards the ground, while the rest 
of the soft ®^ fish couple backwards in the same manner as the 
dog ; cray-fish and shrimps do the same, and crabs employ the 
mouth. 
Erogs leap the one upon the other, the male with its fore- 
feet clasping the armpits of the female, and with its hinder 
ones the haunches. The female produces tiny pieces of black 
flesh, which are loiown by the name of gyrini,^^ and are only 
Cuvier says, that the eggs of the common fishes, of toads, frogs, &c., 
have no shells, but only a membranous tunic ; and when they have been 
once fecundated, they imbibe the surrounding moisture, and increase till 
they produce the animal. 
'^^ It is probable, Cuvier thinks, that this passage relates more especially 
to the ray genus, but that there is lio very positive knowledge as to the 
mode in which they do couple. It is probable, he suggests, that they may 
do it in the manner above mentioned, by the attrition of the belly. As to 
the turtle genus, he says, it is certain that the male mounts the back of the 
female ; and in some species the sternum of the male is concave, the better 
to adapt itself to the convex callipash of the female. 
More properly, the physeter, passage, or orifice. 
Cuvier remarks, that this account of the coupling of the cephalopodes 
is taken from Aristotle. He says, that he is not aware whether modern 
observation has confirmed these statements, and almost doubts whether, 
considering the organization of these animals, it is not almost more pro- 
bable that they do not couple at all, and that the male, as in the case of 
most other fishes, only fecundates the eggs after they have been deposited 
by the female. 
S2 Cuvier says, that whatever may be the sense in which the word 
"mollia" is here taken, the assertion is not correct. The gasteropod 
molluscs, he says, whether hermaphroditical, or whether of separate sexes, 
couple side to side. The acephalous molluscs do not couple at all, and 
each individual fecundates its own eggs. The Crustacea couple by attrition 
of the belly. 
^3 "Tadpoles." There is both truth and falsehood, Cuvier says, in the 
statements here made relative to the tadpole. Frogs, he says, produce 
eggs, from which the tadpole developes itself, with a tail like that of a fish. 
The feet, however, are not produced by any bifurcation of the tail, but 
