266 LIFE, IN ITS HIGHER FORMS. 
an egg, and all to be laid in tbe course of a few days — 
the contribution of one individual herring to the popula- 
tion of the seas ! It would be no sinecure to count them ; 
but, partly by counting, partly by weighing, approxima- 
tions have been made to a knowledge of the extent of a 
fish’s family. Six millions of eggs have been estimated 
to lie in the roe of a single cod ! 
How, of course, an immense proportion of this number 
comes to nothing ; perhaps three-fourths of these eggs are 
devoured by other fishes, or voracious creatures of one 
kind or other, almost before they well reach the bottom ; 
and of the proportion that is hatched, multitudes find a 
speedy termination of existence in the maw of their watch- 
ful and numerous enemies. For, as a general rule, fishes 
are universally carnivorous ; every species preying with- 
out mercy upon all others that it can master and swallow. 
Some curious examples of this voracity are on record. 
Mr Jesse speaks of a Pike, to which he threw in succes- 
sion five Roach, each about four inches in length. “ He 
swallowed four of them, and kept the fifth iu his mouth 
for about a quarter of au hour, when it also disappeared.” 
At a lecture delivered before the Zoological Society of 
Dublin, Dr Houston exhibited as “ a fair sample of a fish’s 
breakfast,” a Frog-fish, two feet and a half long: in the 
stomach of which was a Cod-fish, two feet in length ; the 
Cod’s stomach contained the bodies of two Whitings of 
ordinary size; and the Whitings in their turn held the 
half-digested remains of many smaller fishes, too much 
broken up to be identified. 
“ Harsh seems the ordinance, that life by life 
Should be sustained ; and yet, when all must die, 
