Abstract
I KNOW of no facts in the natural history of male plaice which would render untenable the logically flawless hypothesis of Dr. Bidder (NATURE, April 4), to the effect that it is what he calls “parental death” which occurs in this sex. In females the question of parental death is still in doubt unless “as the fish grows larger” (I quote Dr. Bidder) “k diminishes, and reaches 1.0 at a constant ratio of ovary-weight to body-weight which allows the residual body to recover after spawning”. In this connexion I can only state that one occasionally encounters greatly emaciated very old females (called by fishermen “slinks”) which have all the appearance of not being “long for this world”. This observation, however, merely suggests that in the largest fish “ovary-weight may bear a lethal ratio to body-weight”, the possibility of which is admitted by Dr. Bidder.
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WALLACE, W. The Mortality of Plaice. Nature 115, 607 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/115607c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/115607c0
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