SUBAQUEOUS LIFE—STICKLEBACKS AND NEST. 
i 
Tuis plate represents a group of fifteen-spined sticklebacks busily employed in 
making their nests. To the left is seen a curious piece of marine architecture, 
mentioned by Mr. Couch, the well-known ichthyologist. A pair of sticklebacks 
had made their nest “in the loose end of a rope, from which the separated strands 
hung out about a yard from the surface, over a depth of four or five fathoms, and 
to which the materials could only have been brought, of course, in the mouth of 
the fish, from the distance of about thirty feet. They were formed of the usuai 
aggregation of the finer sorts of green and red sea-weed, but they were so matted 
together in the hollow formed by the untwisted strands of the rope that the mass 
constituted an oblong ball of nearly the size of the fist, in which had been deposited 
the scattered assemblage of spawn, and which was bound into shape with a thread 
of animal substance, which was passed through and through in various directions, 
while the rope itself formed an outside covering to the whole,” 
