288 SUPPLEMENT ON 



the back is armed, as well as by those which assume the 

 place of ventral fins. 



That of Gasterosteus, which has been imposed upon them 

 by Artedi, is intended to express the osseous cuirass, with 

 which the under part of their belly is furnished, and which is 

 formed by the bones of the pelvis, and a part of those of the 

 shoulder, larger, more thick, and less concealed by the tegu- 

 ments, than in many other fishes. 



To the species which unite to these characters of an armed 

 belly, of spiny and free rays on the back, and ofventrals pretty 

 nearly reduced to a single skin, that of three rays only to the 

 gills, Artedi and M. Cuvier limit the genus of the stickle- 

 backs. They remove from it a great number of others, which 

 have not each and all of these different characters. 



The stickle-back with naked tail, and that with armed 

 tail. G. leiurus, et G. trachurus, Cuv. G. aculeatus, Lin. 

 These, the largest of the kind of which naturalists have hi- 

 therto made but one species, under the name of aculeatus, 

 may very well comprehend two very distinct ones, and even 

 more ; but as these differences have not been remarked, it is 

 difficult to discern in their history, what properly belongs to 

 one or to the other. 



Some of these are to be found every where, where there is 

 any stream, marsh, or pool of water. They are included in 

 the Faunae of every European country, and under a variety of 

 names, with which we shall not tire the ears or patience of our 

 readers. They should even exist as far as Greenland, if it be 

 true, indeed, that Fabricius saw there the same species, and 

 not someone of those of America. Gesner alone says, that 

 there are none in Switzerland, but the reverse is known to be 

 the fact. 



Pennant informs us, that in the fens of Lincolnshire these 

 little fishes abound more particularly than elsewhere ; and that 

 at Spalding, they appear from time to time (once in seven or 



