512 



PARENTAL CARE AMONG FRESH-WATER FISHES. 



According to Abbott, the ''courtship of this oaiuly fisli has been no 

 easy matter. Hundreds of his kind, as bright as he, have, like him, 

 striven by the hour to clear the field of every rival, and the clear 

 waters are often turbid with sand and grass torn from the bed of the 

 stream as the older males chase each other from point to point, 

 endeavoring by a successful snap to mutilate each other's fins. No 

 courtship battles among birds are more earnestly fought, and as the 

 bird with bedraggled feathers is wise enough to withdraw from the 

 contest and quietly seek a mate when his soiled plumage is in ])art 

 restored, so the sunfish with torn fins retires from the contested nest- 

 mrr oround. But not a sound lias l)een made bv tliese excited fishes 



Fig. 02. — Coniinnu Siinfish on nest (Ideal). 



except that of the rippling of the water when cut by their spiny fins 

 as they chanced to reach above the surface." 



Meanwhile the male has selected a spot in very shallow water near 

 the shore, and generally in the midst of aquatic vegetation not too 

 large or close together to entirely exclude the light and heat of the 

 sun, and mostly under an overhanging plant. His olioice is apt to 

 be in the same general stretch of shalloAV water as is favored by many 

 others, so that a number of similar nests may be found close together, 

 although never encroaching on each other, close by the shore. Each 

 fish slightly excavates and makes a saucer-like basin in the chosen 

 area, which is carefully cleared of all pebbles. Such are removed 



