On the Habits and Food of the Stickleback. 79 



the death of the animal, were too strong for the texture of his 

 throat. In the ponds and ditches where sticklebacks occur, the 

 young fry will always be found to seek protection in the shallow- 

 est parts of the water from the attacks of their full-grown ene- 

 mies. Our stickleback, at another time, when two minnows, 

 much larger than himself, had been put in to keep him com- 

 pany, attacked them with fury. They fled from his bite in 

 evident dismay ; and one of them, finding no other means of 

 escape, fairly leaped out of the vessel. Even a female of his 

 own species was not better treated by this ungallant tyrant, 

 who allowed no stranger to enter his domain with impu- 

 nity. 



The young of the leech being thus, it is conceived, a fre- 

 quent food of the stickleback, it is not marvellous that such a 

 little devourer should occasionally gorge himself by swallowing 

 a leech of large dimensions for the capacity of his stomach. 

 That this was the case of Mr Ramage's stickleback, seems 

 evident from the situation in which it was found, near the sur- 

 face of the water, and the facility with which it was caught. 

 Leeches possess the power of contracting and expanding them- 

 selves to a great degree ; and it is not in the least surprising, 

 that, when relased from pressure by the death of the stickle- 

 back, and swelled by liquid, Mr Ramage's leech should ap- 

 pear to be larger than the animal that had swallowed it. That 

 it could have lived in the stomach of the stickleback from the 

 period when it was very young till it attained the size men- 

 tioned by Mr Ramage, is very improbable. From the cir- 

 cumstance of sticklebacks feeding on leeches with avidity, it 

 may be inferred, that nature has provided them with the 

 means of digesting this species of aliment ; and the fact of 

 their being fed for weeks on leeches alone, and the usual pro- 

 cesses of digestion and excretion going on, raises this inference 

 to absolute certainty. That an animal so tenacious of life as 

 the leech, should, shortly after being swallowed, be found 

 alive in the intestines of the stickleback, does not, therefore, 

 appear wonderful ; and that the stickleback should have died 

 when " a few minutes 1 ' 1 out of the water, and in the hands of 

 a child, is still less so. The wonder would have been, had it 

 continued to exist in an element so foreign to its nature, in- 



