RIVER GARDENS ; 



emerging from the spawn. He is very ravenous, 

 and it is stated by Baker, as quoted by Orbigny, that 

 one individual has been observed to devour seventy- 

 four vaudoises within an hour. In some parts of 

 the Continent the Sticklebacks are so abundant, 

 after their spawning season, that they are used for 

 manure, and pigs are fed with them. In eastern 

 Prussia oil is extracted from them ; and the Kamts- 

 chadales dry the Gasterosteus obolarius in large 

 quantities for the winter food of their numerous dogs. 

 In England also they are, in some seasons, almost 

 equally abundant. At Spalding, in Lincolnshire, 

 Pennant informs us that they appear occasionally 

 in such large numbers, that he recollects a man who 

 earned four shillings a day by selling them at sixpence 

 a bushel. These shoals at Spalding appear every 

 seven or eight years, coming up from the Wellan. 

 Their flesh is of an agreeable flavour, and forms 

 very wholesome food, making an exceedingly nutri- 

 tious broth ; but their diminutive size has secured 

 them against becoming very generally articles of 

 human food. Their cuirass-like armour and spines 

 secure them also against the assaults of other fish, 

 even the most voracious; but they have a fatal enemy 

 in a small crustaceous parasite, which attaches itself 

 to their bodies, and, sucking the blood, soon destroys 



