THREE-SPINED STICKLEBACK 
guards his wife and home with immense bravado, and 
woe betide any enemy that approaches too near the 
citadel. The greater the excitement, the more the brave 
little male glows with vivid colours and increasing 
courage. It does not possess scales, but a series of bony 
plates Gf such they may be termed) extends vertically 
down the body. The general colour is greenish and 
silvery, and the three spines are borne along the back, 
the two front ones being larger than the small one near 
the dorsal fin. There is also a spine in front of the anal 
Three -spined STickleback. Fig 58 
fin, and one on the middle part of the belly. This 
fish does not attain a greater length than 2 to 4 inches. 
It moves about in shoals, and inhabits shallow, as well as 
deep, water. The merest rivulet, or water-cress bed, 
having a clear current of water, will contain some of 
these gay little tenants whose appetite is prodigious when 
one remembers the smallness of this species. ‘The male 
is a model father in so far as the young are concerned, 
as he not only tends them with great fidelity, but will 
even carry them back into the nest if they leave it before 
he considers it safe for them so to do. One wife does not 
suit the male Stickleback as, apparently, she does not 
105 
