[ 2-8 3 ] 
truth. I frequently boiled the portions of fpawn that 
I told, and after macerating them fome hours in 
water, gently prelied them with a penknife, whofe 
point I afterwards made ufe of to number them 
diftindly, by feparating them from each other to 
greater diftances, after they were rendered by that 
gentle fqueezing fitter for telling over. 
In feveral filh I found their eggs of very different 
fizes. In fuch cafes my rule was, to tell all I 
could difhnguifh by my naked eye, and thofe only y 
though I have often found, by the help of an eye-glafs, 
that, by thus limiting myfelf, I palled over great 
multitudes of eggs that might juftly have been 
counted*. I generally told them on a fine earthen 
* For, though they were very different in fize, they were all, 
I prefume, to be depofited in the proper places for hatching that 
feafon, though it may be not on the fame day, fince after fiftv 
are Ihotten, as it is called, we find no eggs at all in them. I 
think I do not by any means take upon me to affirm, that all fifii 
depofite their eggs after this manner, i. e. by degrees, and at times 
a little diftant from each other; but fome fpecies of them, I 
fhould think it is plain, do. This is t^ecafe of ftickleback in 
particular, in which, when they have been extremely diftended 
with fpawn, I have found feveral eggs very large, but feveral hun- 
dreds very fmall, and many of them too fmall to be counted diftindt- 
ly by an unaffified eye, which fmaller ones could never, I appre- 
hend, grow to the fize the larger ones had grown to before thelarger 
ones were excluded. 1 have feen fome of thefe eggs fo large, 
that 24 or 25 would weigh a grain ; about which fize, 1 believe, 
they are excluded, fince fome of that bulk came away from one 
of thofe creatures after it was taken out of the water,, and were 
found in the paper in which it was wrapped up: but generally upon 
opening thefe fifh they are not quite fo large, though very large in 
comparifon of many of the reft. I told in one of thefe ftnalleft of 
fifties, which weighed very little more than 14 gr. fpawn and all, 
about 936 eggs, fome of which almoft eluded my eye, befides 
O o 2 veflel* 
