Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

HERODOTUS, ARISTOTLE ON SPAWNING 339way, and drop their milt as they go, while the females, followingclose behind, eagerly swallow it down. From this they conceive,and when, after passing some time in the sea, they beginto be in spawn, the whole shoal sets off on its return to itsancient haunts. Now, however, it is no longer the males,but the females, which take the lead :they swim in front ina body, and do exactly as the males did before, dropping littleby little their grains of spawn as they go, while the males intheir rear devour the grains, each one of which is a fish. Aportion of the spawn escapes and is not swallowed by themales, and hence come the fishes which grow afterwards tomaturity. . . ." When the Nile begins to rise, the hollows in the land andthe marshy spots near the river are flooded before any otherplaces by the percolation of the water through the river-banks ;and these, almost as soon as they become pools, are found to befull of numbers of little fishes. I think that I understand howit is this comes to pass. On the subsidence of the Nile the yearbefore, though the fish retired with the retreating waters, theyhad first deposited their spawn in the mud upon the banks :and so, when at the usual season the water returns, small fryare rapidly engendered out of the spawn of the preceding year.So much concerning the fish."And was the great zoologist Aristotle ^ more accurate inhis suggestion as to spawning ?" Some surmise that thefemale becomes impregnated by swallowing the seminal fluidof the male. And there can be no doubt that this proceedingon the part of the female is often witnessed, for at the breedingseason the female follows the males and perform the act andstrike the males with their mouths under the belly, and themales are thereby induced to part with the sperm sooner andmore plentifully."The Pahlavi texts tell us that at spawning time or season ofexcitement fish in pairs travel to and fro a mile in runningwater. In this coming and going they rub their bodies together,and a kind of sweat drops out between, and both becomepregnant.1 N. H.. V. 5.