Fishes have different seasons for depo siting their spawn. Some, which live in the depths of the ocean, are said to choose the winter months; but, in general, those with which ve are acquainted choose the hottest months in summer, and prefer such water as is somewhat tepified by the beams of the sun. They then leave the deepest parts of the ocean, which are the coldest, and shoal round the coast, or swim up the fresh-water rivers, which are warm as they are comparatively shallow, depositing their eggs where the sun's in fluence can most easily reach them, and seeming to take no farther charge of their future progeny. Of the eggs thus depo sited scarcely one in a hundred brings forth an animal, as they are devoured by all the lesser fry which frequent the shores, by aquatic birds near the margin, and by the larger fish in deep water. Still, however, the sea is amply supplied with inhabitants : and notwithstanding their own rapacity, and that of various tribes of fowls, the numbers that escape are sufficient to relieve the wants of a con siderable portion of mankind. Indeed, when we consider the fecundity of a sin gle fishy the amount will seem astonish ing. If we should be told, for example, that a single being could in one season, produce as many of its kind as there are inhabitants in England, it would strike us with surprise : yet the cod annually spawns, according to Lewenhoeck, above nine million of eggs contained in a single roe. The flounder is comthonly known to
produce above one million; and the mac karel above five hundred thousand ; a herring of a moderate size will yield at least ten thousand ; a carp, of fourteen inches in length, contained, according to Petit, two hundred and sixty-two thou sand two hundred and twenty-four; and another, sixteen inches long, contained three hundred and forty-two thousand one forty-lbur ; a perch deposit ed three hundred and eighty thousand six hundred and forty ; and a female stur geon, seven million six hundred and fifty three thousand two hundred. The vivi parous species are by no means so fruit ful; yet the blenny brings forth two or three hundred at a time, all alive, and playing round the parent together.
Pisces, in astronomy, the twelfth sigh, or constellation of the zodiac. The stills in Pisces, in Ptolemy's catalogue, are thirty-eight ; in Tycho's thirty-three ; and in the Britannic catalogue one hundred and nine.