224 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. 



"show me another besides my poor black brother the 

 Tinker, and he is clearly one of us though sadly degene- 

 rated who builds a nest in which his wife may lay her 

 eggs, or takes so much fatherly interest in his family. I 

 am handsome, a good architect, a kind and considerate 

 parent; and I should like to see the fish of double or 

 treble my size that dares come near my nest ! " 



Desirous of making myself personally and practically 

 acquainted with the ways of these fishes, of whose nest- 

 building habits I had frequently read, I commissioned some 

 small urchins, disciples of good old Isaak Walton's, to 

 procure me some by the exercise of their gentle craft. 

 They therefore armed themselves with the necessary 

 apparatus, consisting of a perforated tin pot at the end of a 

 long stick, as the instrument of capture, and a large pickle- 

 jar, for the reception of the captured and ere long brought 

 me a dozen or more of Thornies, all alive oh ! 



When I had thus acquired my little friends, I had at 

 first much ado to get them housed. And when I had got 

 them safely housed, I had still more ado to get them to 

 agree among themselves. I began by putting into one of 

 my glass tanks, in which there grew sufficient healthy 

 weed to ensure the purity of the water, a male Thornie 

 and three females. The male was just beginning to 

 assume the bright colours (blue, and crimson, and creamy 

 white) of courtship. But the largest and stoutest of the 

 females bullied him so unmercifully reversing the usual 

 order of things among sticklebacks that in two days he was 

 utterly dejected and crest-fallen, and had completely lost 

 all sign of colour. I then put into the same tank another 

 male. Him, too, the irascible old lady bullied unmercifully, 

 pulling his fins and his tail in the most vulgar fashion, 

 until he leapt out of the water in his agony. 



I felt that such conduct could not be allowed. It 



