AND ANGLING SONGS. 163 



burgh, below the Castle, now the West Princes Street Gardens. 

 It also existed in the Kirkbraehead Pond, the site of which is 

 presently occupied by Rutland Square. It had, according to 

 the late Dr. Neill, its abode in the Canonmills Loch up to the 

 period of its being drained. It also swarmed in the ditches 

 which lined the Meadows. From this last-mentioned locality, 

 in fact, Mr. Yarrell procured specimens of the spinulosus, or 

 four-spined stickleback. The Water of Leith, however, also 

 referred to by Dr. Neill as primed with this fierce little fish, was 

 in those days the favourite resort of the juvenile angler ; and I 

 recollect it as a sure hold both of minnows and banstickles, 

 many a brilliant specimen of which I was wont to keep im- 

 prisoned in a bottle or water-jug, without being at all aware of 

 the influence of the sexual inclinations in thus adonizing the 

 persons of my puny captives. But it is not my intention to 

 press a further account of the stickleback, or to attempt to 

 engage for it any consideration beyond that of its being an ex- 

 cellent subject for the aquarium. The capability it manifests of 

 enduring restraint and privations adapts it admirably for this 

 purpose. Its habits and instincts are exceedingly curious. The 

 construction of the nidus, the jealousy of the males in the pairing 

 season, the transformations in respect to shape and colour which 

 both sexes undergo, assist to make the practical study of its 

 natural history extremely interesting. Moreover, it is a fish as 

 easily obtained almost as the tadpole, the fenny districts of Eng- 

 land swarming with it a circumstance, that of commonness I 

 mean, which, so far from rendering the inquirer into the marvels 

 of creation indifferent, should rather prompt him in his researches, 

 and invest them with a more engaging importance. Of the charr 

 of Loch Achilty, and its peculiar breeding-grounds, I shall reserve 

 what I have to say for a future chapter. The three tarns or 

 lochlets in communion with this singular sheet of water singular 

 in more respects than one but particularly so as regards the 



