200 ON THE NESTS OF THE FIFTEEN-SPINED STICKLEBACK. 



long as the body, filiform, slightly dilated at the tips ; fins small, rounded 

 subdorsal, and reflected backwards ; funnel white. Although kept alive, in 

 a basin of sea water, for about twelve hours, and repeatedly irritated, it 

 never ejected any inky fluid, with which it is nevertheless amply provided. 

 I have taken a perfect specimen from the stomach of the Lythe. 



4. SKPIA. LINN&US. 



1. S. officinalis, "body smooth; feet as long as the body; dorsal 

 plate elliptical." Linn. Penn. Brit. Zool. iv. 117. Flem. Brit. 

 Anim. 252. 



Hob. Berwick Bay 1 



The cuttle-fish itself I have never seen, but its dorsal plate is frequently cast 

 on our shore, more particularly on Holy Island, and as it is little injured, 

 even the thin membranousborder being generally entire,it seems evident that 

 it cannot have been brought from a distance by the tides, and is probably 

 the remains of native individuals. (For a description of this singular pro- 

 duction, reference may be made to Cuvier's admirable work " Sur les Mol- 

 lusques," Mem. i. p. 47 ; to Dr Fleming's Philosophy of Zoology, vol. ii. 

 p. 436 ; or to the Magazine of Natural History, vol. v. p. 612.) 



On the Nests of the Fifteen-spined Stickleback, or Gasterosteus spinachia 



of Linnceus. 



In an early volume of the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, there is 

 a slight notice of fishes' nests found on the coast of Berwickshire by 

 Admiral Milne, but the species offish by whom they are constructed is 

 not mentioned. Mr Duncan of Eyemouth has ascertained that they be- 

 long to the Fifteen-spined Stickleback, a fact confirmed by the Rev. 

 Mr Turnbull, to whom the Club is indebted for specimens. 



These nests are to be found in spring and summer on several parts 

 of our coast, in rocky and weedy pools between tide-marks. They oc- 

 cur occasionally near Berwick, but seem to be more common near Eye- 

 mouth and Coldingham. They are about eight inches in length, and of 

 an elliptical form or pear-shaped, formed by matting together the branches 

 of some common Fucus, as, for example, of the Fucus nodosus, with va- 

 rious confervas, ulvae, the smaller floridese, and corallines. These are all 

 tied together in one confused compact mass by means of a thread run 

 through, and around, and amongst them in every conceivable direction. 

 The thread is of great length, as fine as ordinary silk, tough, and some- 

 what elastic ; whitish, and formed of some albuminous secretion. The 

 eggs are laid in the middle of this nest in several irregular masses of 

 about an inch in diameter, each consisting of many hundred ova, which 

 are of the size of ordinary shot, and of a whitish or amber colour accord- 

 ing to their degree of maturity. The farther advanced are marked with 

 two round black spots, which are discovered by the microscope to be the 



