466 
plii^y's NATUBAL histoey. 
[Book IX. 
ones. It produces within itself^ very soft eggs, wliicli it then 
transfers to another place in the uterus, and from that part 
ejects them. The same is the case with all those fish to which 
we have given the name of cartilaginous ; hence it is, that 
these alone of all the fishes are at once viviparous and oviparous. 
The male silurus^ is the only fish among them all that watches 
the eggs after they are brought forth, often for as long a period 
as fifty days, that they may not be devoured by other fish. 
The females of other kinds bring forth their eggs in the course 
of three days, if the male has only touched them. 
CHIP. 76. FISHES THE BELLY OF WHICH OPENS IN SPAWNING, 
AND THEN CLOSES AGAIN. 
The sea-needle, or the belone, is the only fish in which the 
multitude of its eggs, in spawning, causes the belly to open 
asunder ; but immediately after it has brought forth, the wound 
heals again : a thing which, it is said, is the case with the 
blind- worm as well. The sea-mouse digs a hole in the earth, 
deposits its eggs there, and then covers them up. On the 
thirtieth day it opens the hole, and leads its young to the 
water. 
CHAP. 77. (52.) FISHES WHICH HAVE A WOHB ; THOSE WHICH 
IMPEEGNATE THEMSELVES. 
The fishes called the erythinus^^ and the channe^^ are said to 
8 All the chondropterygian fishes, Cuvier says, have, in addition to their 
ovaries, real oviducts, which the ordinary fishes have not ; the lower part 
of which, being detached, acts as the uterus, into which the eggs descend 
when they have gained their proper size : and it is here that the young 
ones burst forth from the egg, when the parent animal is viviparous. 
9 Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. vi. c. 13, says the same of the glanis, or 
silurus. 
10 The Syngnathus acus of Linnaeus. This fish, Cuvier says, and in 
general all of the same genus, has a channel situate under the tail, which 
is opened by two moveable valves. In this they deposit their eggs at the 
moment of excluding them. After this, the valves opon, to give a passage 
to the eggs, or the young enclosed in them. This circumstance, he says, 
gave rise to the notion mentioned in the text. 
11 Mentioned in c. 35 of the present Book. Cuvier says that the sea 
tortoises, or turtles, to which no doubt this animal belonged, do deposit 
their eggs much in the way here mentioned. 
12 Both these fishes have been mentioned in c. 23 of the present Book. 
13 Pliny means to say, Cuvier says, that all these fish are to be looked 
