C 28 + ] 
vtflcl, which was extremely black, by which means 
I could much better difeern them, than 1 otherwise 
fhould have been able to do. The weights 1 have 
reckoned by are Avoirdupois weights ; but there being 
no weights of that fort lmali enough to aniwer ail 
ptirpoles, I was obliged to make ule of grains along 
with them, of which I reckon 43 yL. make an ounce 
Avoirdupois. After this manner i made the cbfer- 
vations of which I am going to give an account, with 
ail the nicety and care J was capable of. 
1 begin with the herring, which makes a diftin- 
guifhed figure in thefe two counties of Norfolk and 
Suffolk, and a confiderable part of our commerce, 
when faked and fmoked. One of the above-men- 
tioned authors fuppofed, they may have 9 or 10,000 
eggs : of feveral 1 examined, I found none which 
had lo few as 20,000 ; and in one I found 36,960. 
The intermediate numbers which appeared to me on 
numbers of others that I could not tell at all. Thofe that I told 
were of all fizes ; and though there were but 56 very large eggs, 
yet the creature was extremely didended. Now it does not ap- 
pear poflible that all the 936 eggs fhould grow to the hulk of the 
largeft of their companions without deftroying the fifh, fince the 
growing of 56 to fuch a fize as to weigh about i| grain diffend • 
cd it in fuch a manner as I have hardly feen in any other fpccies 
of fifh. In fome very large fticklebacks, which weighed 45 or 
50 grains, I have found between ?. and 300 of thefe large eggs, 
along with great numbers of fmaller ones, lo that the number of 
large eggs feems to bear fome proportion to the fize of the fifh, 
by which means a greater number of eggs, anfwerable to their 
fize, may be depofited in the fame time in which the fmaller fifh 
of this fpecies difeharge their lefs numerous fpawn. I will only 
farther obftrve here, that if this be the cafe as to the other fifh, 
the number of their eggs may, on this account, appear very 
different to different^obfervers.^ 
examination. 
