ANGLING WITHOUT A HOOK. 125 



occasionally, in shallow water. They eat almost everything 

 eatable that is not too large for them to swallow, and I have 

 heard that they are not bad eating themselves. Tillage urchins 

 sometimes angle for these peculiar beings by placing a hook 

 baited with a worm right under the stone where a bull- 

 head is lying. The better plan is to lift up the stone, and 

 extract the bullhead with the hand before he has time to flee. 



The Stickleback. — Of these ubiquitous little fish there are 

 six varieties. They are all more or less armed with bony 

 plates along their sides, and spines on back and belly. They 

 are found in almost every ditch, river, and lake in the United 

 Kingdom, and rarely exceed l^in. in length. On rivers, they 

 live for the most part out of the stream — on muddy shallows. 

 They are interesting fish to keep in an aquarium, building a 

 kind of nest, in which the female deposits her eggs, and at the 

 door of which the male keeps guard. They are as voracious as 

 the bullhead, and are very harmful, from the amount of fish 

 spawn and fry which they devour. They are easily caught by 

 means of a worm tied, at the middle, to a piece of cotton. As 

 soon as the stickleback has swallowed half the worm (the pro- 

 ceeding can be watched), pull him up gently. He will not 

 leave go. 



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