In the case of oviparous fishes the process of coition is less
open to observation. In point of fact, some are led by the want of
actual observation to surmise that the female becomes impregnated by
swallowing the seminal fluid of the male. And there can be no doubt
that this proceeding on the part of the female is often witnessed; for
at the rutting season the females follow the males and perform this
operation, and strike the males with their mouths under the belly, and
the males are thereby induced to part with the sperm sooner and more
plentifully. And, further, at the spawning season the males go in
pursuit of the females, and, as the female spawns, the males swallow
the eggs; and the species is continued in existence by the spawn
that survives this process. On the coast of Phoenicia they take
advantage of these instinctive propensities of the two sexes to
catch both one and the other: that is to say, by using the male of the
grey mullet as a decoy they collect and net the female, and by using
the female, the male.