FISHES* NESTS. 71 



allude are purely oviparous, and all belong to fami- 

 lies of the Osseous series. The parent fishes, some- 

 times by mutual co-operation, thereby manifesting 

 themselves to be monogamous, prepare a nest for 

 their young, and then subsequently protect them 

 with the most devoted care. A few details illus- 

 trating these particulars will not prove unaccept- 

 able. 



One of the species of the well-known genus 

 Gasterosteus — the Stickle-back s, namely, G. spina- 

 chia^ the fifteen-spined stickle-back, has been long 

 known to build its nest on our own shores. A 

 slight notice concerning fishes' nests discovered on 

 the coast of Berwickshire, by Admiral Milne, will 

 be found in an early Number of the Edinburgh 

 Philosophical Journal ; and although the species is 

 not there mentioned, the deficiency has been since 

 supplied. The nests are to be found in several parts 

 of the coast, in spring and summer, in rocky and 

 weedy pools between tide-marks. They are about 

 eight inches in length, and pear-shaped, formed, as 

 our friend Doctor Johnston of Berwick states, of 

 branches of some common fucus, with various con- 

 fervje, corallines, &c. These are all bound toge- 

 ther, in one confused compact mass, by means of a 

 thread run through and round in every conceivable 

 direction. This thread is of great length, as fine as 

 ordinary silk, tough, and somewhat elastic; whitish, 

 and formed of some albuminous secretion. The eggs 

 are laid in the middle of this nest, in several irre- 

 gular masses of about an inch in diameter, each 



