326 Account of the Nest of Sticklebacks. 



exceed four or five he always succeeds in repelling them by 

 force. But there are times when the enemy becomes so 

 formidable that all resistance is useless ; and although, in 

 this case, he is not able to defend himself, he does not re- 

 nounce the hope of getting over the storm. He has recourse 

 to a stratagem ; leaves his nest with an unusually violent jerk- 

 ing movement, adopts all the lures of a fish pursuing its 

 prey, and thus endeavours to eff'ect a diversion. This stra- 

 tagem often succeeds, for the sticklebacks, urged by the hope 

 of wresting his prey from him, disperse without completing 

 the act of spoliation they meditated against the eggs. But the 

 artifice does not always preserve the nest from plunder ; I 

 have seen individuals obliged to attempt it five or six suc- 

 cessive times. 



" When he succeeds, by his assiduous care and courageous 

 perseverance, in preserving his nest till near the time of 

 hatching, his zeal is redoubled ; he takes away the stones to 

 give more easy access to the water, makes new openings 

 and enlarges the old ones, multiplies the currents, moves the 

 eggs, brings them sometimes to the surface, at other times 

 carries them to the bottom, thus supplying them, by varying 

 their position, with the conditions suited to this period of 

 their development. Finally, when the eggs are hatched, he 

 still continues to watch over them in his nest, and does not 

 allow them to go at liberty till they have become sufficiently 

 active to provide the means for their own preservation." 



In the sitting of the Academy on the 1st of June, a letter 

 was received without signature, stating that the Dictionary 

 of Valmont de Bomare mentions circumstances analogous to 

 those particularised by M. Coste. The writer of this letter 

 ought in honesty to have added, that, in this dictionary, the 

 only fact announced is, that the stickleback collects herba- 

 ceous substances in order to construct a nest (?) or a maga- 

 zine of provisions (?), which it defends with vivacity against 

 all the attacks made by other sticklebacks ; and even this 

 fact is referred to as doubtful. 



M. Dumeril has presented to the Academy of Sciences 

 (sitting of 17th Aug. 1846) a very favourable report respect- 



