200 ON THE NESTS OF THE FIFTEEN- SPINED STICKLEBACK. 



filiform, slightly dilated at tho tips ; fins small, rounded subdorsal, and 

 reflected backwards ; funnel white. Although kept alive, in a basin of sea 

 water, for about twelve hours, and repeatedly irritated, it never ejected any 

 inky fluid, with which it is nevertheless amply provided. I have taken a 

 perfect specimen from the stomach of the Lythe. 



4. Sepia. Linn^us. 



1. S. officinalis, " body smooth. ; feet as long as the body ; dorsal plate 

 elliptical." Linn. Fenn. Brit. Zool. iv. 117. Flem. Brit. Anim. 

 252. 



Hah. Berwick Bay ? 



The cuttle-fish itself I have never seen, but its dorsal plate is frequently cast on 

 our shore, more particularly on Holy Island, and as it is little injured, even 

 the thin membranous border being generally entire, it seems evident that it 

 cannot have been brought from a distance by the tides, and is probably the 

 remains of native individuals. (For a description of this singular jDroduction, 

 reference may be made to Cuvier's admirable work " Sur les Mollusques," 

 Mem. i. p. 47 ; to Dr Fleming's Philosophy of Zoology, vol. ii. p. 436 ; or to 

 the Magazine of Natural History, vol. v. p. 612.) 



On the JVesfs of the Fifteen-spinecl Sticldehach, or Gasterosteus spinachia 



of Linnceus. 



In an early volume of the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, there is 

 a slight notice of fishes' nests found on the coast of Berwickshire by 

 Admiral Milne, but the species of fish by whom they are constructed is 

 not mentioned. Mr Duncan of Eyemouth has ascertained that they be- 

 long to the Fifteen-spined Stickleback, — a fact confirmed by the Eev. 

 Mr Turnbull, to whom the Club is indebted for specimens. 



These nests are to be found in spring and summer on several parts 

 of our coast, in rocky and weedy pools between tide-marks. They oc- 

 cur occasionally near Berwick, but seem to be more common near Eye- 

 mouth and Coldingham. They are about eight inches in length, and 

 of an elliptical form or pear-shaped, formed by matting together the 

 branches of some common Fucus, as for example, of the Pucus nodosus, 

 with various confervse, ulvte, the smaller florideae, and corallines. 

 These are all tied together in one confused compact mass by means of 

 a thread run through, and around, and amongst them in every con- 

 ceivable direction. The thread is of great length, as fine as ordinary 

 silk, tough, and somewhat elastic ; whitish, and formed of some album- 

 inous secretion. The eggs are laid in the middle of this nest in several 

 irregular masses of about an inch in diameter, each consisting of many 

 hundred ova, which are of the size of ordinary shot, and of a whitish or 

 amber colour according to their degree of maturity. The farther ad- 

 vanced are marked with two round black spots, which are discovered 

 by the microscope to be the eyes of the embryo, at this period dispropor- 



