THE STICKLEBACK. 59 



After the depositing of the ova by the female is accomplished sho 

 retreats and receives the seeming caresses of her mate, and then retires to 

 a distance, whilst he enters the nest and completes the rest of the 

 business. This does not take long, and after arranging any part that 

 may have been displaced by the female, he again appears and seeks 

 another partner, wooing her as gently as the first, and with as much 

 solicitude guarding her as she fulfils her part of the conjugal relation.. 

 And so it goes on until some six or seven layers of impregnated ova are 

 spread, and the cavity of the nest is filled, with the exception of a smaft 

 space, which Mr. Stickleback reserves as a peep-hole, through which he 

 may watch, with those marvellously brilliant eyes of his, the daily progress 

 of incubation in the intervals of his sentinelship. For a whole month 

 this sentinelship is unflagging, and he has no little trouble in keeping- 

 inquisitive females from poking their noses into the structure, they being 

 naturally also very anxious to look at the eggs, and, most unnaturally,, 

 anxious sometimes to devour them too. 



We will now suppose the month expired and the tiny gasterostei broken 

 from their close prison-house in which they have been " cabined, cribbed, 

 confined " so long. Immediately they appear Mr. Stickleback's anxieties 

 increase. They are " little Turks " in every sense, for they are almost 

 of microscopical size, and as termagant as could be imagined, giving 

 their papa a world of trouble. He knows, but they don't seem to, that 

 their maternal parents and several unrelated gentlemen friends aie 

 constantly in the vicinity seeking what tiny gasterostei they may devour.. 

 Sometimes one strays from the flock, like the inquisitive little trout of the 

 fable, but his course is instantly arrested, and he is seized by the not 

 over gentle jaws of his guardian, and borne back to the company of his 

 sisters and brothers, having sometimes a good shaking given him in the 

 bargain. And so the family cares of our stickleback increase until these 

 fry arrive at a sufficiently mature age to shift for themselves. When 

 this period, according to the judgment of their adult parent, is arrived at,, 

 he disbands them, and they go about their business feeding ravenously. 



Such is a short account of the domestic habits of these little creatures^ 

 but I need hardly say that no written description can or does do justice to 

 their wonderful eccentricities and curious characteristics. The process 

 described may be observed by anyone in the spring and summer of the 

 year. Truly we may apply to them the well-worn words of Virgil in 

 reference to the bees : " EC magnos animos in parvo corpore versant ! " 

 (they have big souls in their little bodies). 



The food of the stickleback is of almost as various a description as that 

 of the perch. It chiefly, however, feeds on the fry of other fish and not 

 infrequently its own and fish eggs. It will eat great quantities of perch 



