Note 2371 — BOOK IX. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF FISHES.

The erythinus is supposed to be the roach, or rochet, of the present day, and the channe, the ruff or perch. Ovid, in his Halieuticon, l. 107, alludes to the same notion that is here mentioned: “And the channe, that reproduces itself, deprived of two-fold parents.” Cuvier remarks, that, wonderful as these assertions may be, they are not devoid, to all appearance, of a certain foundation; for that Cavolini has observed in the Perca cabrilla and Perca scriba of Linnæus, a species of hermaphroditism; the ovary having always in the interior a lobe, which, from its conformation, would appear to be for the milt; and that he is strongly of opinion that in this species, and some others of the same genus, all the fish produce eggs, and fecundate them themselves.