THE AQUARIUM, JANUARY, 1895. 



147 



hundreds; but I am sorry to say they 

 soon disappeared, being devoured by 

 the other fish, and caught by the ten- 

 tacles of the sea anemones. The 

 mother-fish continued her attendance 

 at the nest as long as any of the young 

 fry were left.' 



" The stickleback is very tenacious 

 ■of life, and will live out of water for 

 several hours. I was watching, a few 

 mornings since, on the sea shore, 

 where some fishermen had left the 

 refuse of their nets the night before; 

 all the animals were dead, except a 

 solitary stickleback, who still survived 

 and being placed in the sea, scuttled 

 ■off again as through nothing had hap- 

 pened. The fresh water species are 

 ■ofte?! taken at sea at the mouths of 

 rivers; and Sir Edward Belcher informs 

 me that he took a specimen whilst 

 dredging at sea during the last Polar 

 voyage." 



A water temperature of 60 to 70 de- 

 grees F. seems to be the most favorable 

 during breeding time. If possible, each 

 male should be supplied with two fe- 

 males. After the female has deposited 

 the eggs and left the nest the male 

 chases her away from the nest and 

 enters it himself, remaining in it from 

 two to three minutes. After this he 

 closes the hole out of which they had 

 left the nest and takes his position be- 

 fore the entrance, fanning the eggs day 

 and night, only leaving them to inspect 

 the surroundings or to drive away an 

 enemy. He takes the eggs out of the 

 nest from time to time to assort them, 

 carrying away the bad ones, and placing 

 the good ones back in the nest. This 

 is done some days four times. The 

 number of eggs in one deposit of a 

 female is from thirty to forty, and about 

 five such deposits are made in intervals 

 •of about a week ; only two-thirds of 



them, however, become young fish. 

 Considering that one male takes the 

 eggs of four to five females in one nest, 

 and after these deposits are hatched 

 goes to ''housekeeping" again until 

 the hot weather approaches, he can get 

 up a pi'etty numerous family in one 

 season. 



Sticklebacks are very intelligent fish. 

 The first Stickleback that engaged 

 in nest-building in one of our tanks 

 had, having the first pick, used up 

 the best building material ; when he 

 had completed building, hardly any 

 was left. A second one which now 

 commenced to build had no other 

 chance to get choice material than by 

 stealing it from the nest of the other. 

 To that effect he made himself appear 

 too busy to notice anything else than 

 his own nest — but as soon as the other 

 stickleback left his nest to go in search 

 for this or that in order to still " im- 

 prove on it," or to the other end of the 

 tank to "court," he would sneak 

 through the cavity of the rock work, 

 taking advantage of every stoue or 

 plant to hide behind and keeping 

 closely to the bottom at the same time, 

 to the other one's nest. There no time 

 was lost ; he tore off what he found was 

 most useful and with a big mouthful 

 of building material he would return 

 just as carefullv over the same sneak 

 road to his own nest, which was a much 

 greater distance than the ordinary 

 honest road. Once he was caught in 

 the act of stealing and a fearful fight 

 followed, which lasted about five min- 

 utes, and which was finally decided by 

 the females who took part with the thief 

 and drove the other back to his estate. 



The twelfth day after the eggs are 

 deposited, the young fish make their 

 appearance; the old ones should now be 

 taken away from them, as they will eat 



