84 BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 
a few yellow eggs, and bores her way out through the 
wall at the opposite end, thus creating a back door to the 
premises. Then the husband enters and pays the necessary 
attention to what she has left behind, and the rest of the 
day is spent in the usual occupation of combat and quest 
of food. 
Next morning the same process is repeated ; but, if we are 
to accept the evidence of close observers, not always with the 
same lady. The private morals of great soldiers and sailors 
(and the stickleback combines the attributes of both) are not 
always exemplary : provided the master of this queer little 
house can get the full complement of eggs stored therein— 
sixty to eighty, says Von Siebold—he is not very scrupulous 
about whom he can induce to lay them. Once the tale is 
complete, he dismisses his harem and builds up both doors, 
remarking, as he does so, ‘‘ No admission except on business, 
and nobody /as any business on my premises.” Then he 
takes up his station outside, truculently driving away all 
intruders, and especially careful not to allow the mothers of 
his family to interfere with his charge, knowing, probably, 
that they could not be trusted with each other’s eggs. Every 
now and then he pulls out a hole in the nest and enters him- 
self, just to see that everything is correct. The length of his 
vigil is from ten to thirty days, according to the temperature 
of the water. When the swarm of tiny sticklebacks begin to 
escape from the eggs, the male parent assumes sole charge of 
them. ‘The mother or mothers are goodness knows where— 
attending race-meetings, no doubt, playing bridge, or slum- 
ming in the East-end, whatever may be the subaqueous 
equivalents to such pursuits, according to their different 
temperaments. It is the father unaided who runs the nursery, 
catching food for the little ones, and masticating it himself 
before he puts it before them. For the first week or so after 
hatching he keeps his offspring closely confined in the nest ; 
then, when they are three or four millimetres in length, he 
