AMONG THE FISHES. 13! 



ally dropped in the water. A still more foolish story 

 is that eels grow from hair-worms. The truth is that 

 the hair-worm comes from an egg, like other worms, 

 and the eel is a real fish. A strange sort of fish, un- 

 doubtedly. It has the head of a fish, though without 

 gill covers,* and it has also 'a pectoral fin. Its dorsal 

 and anal fins run along nearly one third of the body. 

 Eels are found most abundantly in those waters which 

 communicate with the sea. 



The flying-fish and the stickleback must have a word. 

 The former, to escape its pursuing enemy, with a 

 spring of its tail, leaps into the air. Its pectoral fins, 

 you observe, are developed something like wings. The 

 California flyer ' ' flies for a distance sometimes of nearly 

 a quarter of a mile, usually not rising more than four 

 feet. When on the wing it resembles a large dragon- 



fly." 



The little sticklebacks are found in some rivers on 

 the Atlantic coast. The black bass is 

 one of the few fishes that take any care 

 of their young. It builds a saucer-like 



*. Stickleback. 



nest on the bottom, where the eggs 

 are deposited, and where, when hatched, the fry are 

 carefully protected. But the stickleback builds a nest 

 somewhat like that of a bird. The male gathers weeds 

 and erects a barrel-shaped house. He secretes a mar- 

 velous kind of mucous in his body, which, as soon as it 

 comes in contact with the water, grows firm and hard. 

 With this he cements his nest. Sticklebacks, on ac- 

 count of this interesting architecture, are sometimes 

 confined in aquariums. Their nests in the water are 

 often the subjects of pleasant pictures. 



