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Jogular Morotario Sectory 10
Page 07
In No. 4 we have an illustration of the tube-mouth or Solenostoma, one of the two known kinds of fish in which the female shows a sense of her position as a mother. The tube-mouth, as you can see at a glance, is a close relation of our old friend the seahorse, whose disguised and undisguised forms in Australia and the Mediterranean we have already observed when dealing with the question of animal masqueraders. Solenostoma is a native of the Indian Ocean, from Zanzibar to China. In the male, the lower pair of fins are separate, as is usual among fish; but in the female, represented in the accompanying sketch, they are lightly joined at the edge, so as to form a sort of pouch like a kangaroo's, in which the eggs are deposited after being laid, and thus carried about in the mother's safe keeping. No. 5 shows the arrangement of this pouch in detail, with the eggs inside it. The mother Solenostoma not only takes charge of the spawn while it is hatching in this receptacle, but also looks after the young fry, like the father stickleback, till they are of an age to go off on their own account in quest of adventures. The most frequent adventure that happens to them on the way is, of course, being eaten.
In Italy (B.C. 212) the two Consuls Appius Claudius and Q. Fulvius began to draw together their forces for the purpose of besieging Capua. Hannibal advanced to relieve it, and compelled the Consuls to withdraw; but he was unable to force either of them to fight. Shortly afterward he returned again to the south to urge on the siege of the citadel of Tarentum, which still held out; and he spent the winter and the whole of the ensuing spring (B.C. 211) in its immediate neighborhood. But during his absence the Consuls had renewed the siege of Capua, and prosecuted it with such activity, that they had succeeded in surrounding the city with a double line of intrenchments. The pressing danger once more summoned Hannibal to its relief. He accordingly presented himself before the Roman camp, and attacked their lines from without, while the garrison co-operated with him by a vigorous sally from the walls.
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