102 NATURE'S STORY OF THE YEAR 



by puffing at them (Day's " Fishes of Great Britain 

 and Ireland " vol. i. p. 243), and no doubt they 

 could so be recovered. But two sticklebacks in 

 my keeping employed a surer method : the parent 

 took the young one quite inside his mouth by 

 means of a great gulp, and, returning to the nest, 

 blew it out among its companions, the little one 

 turning over and over from the violence with 

 which it was expelled. While the old one was 

 carrying this tender morsel his mouth was com- 

 pletely closed, and the gills were not moved, and 

 he therefore could not breathe. It may be as well 

 to mention how I came to see all this. The whole 

 scene was several times witnessed from the distance 

 of not more than a foot ; not, it is true, in a stream, 

 but in a large milk-pan which had been carefully 

 prepared to resemble the habitat of the fish, and in 

 which, in two successive years, a brood was reared. 

 A brooklet near Eltham revealed an equally 

 wonderful incident in the ways of this fish. Two 

 had their nests about two feet apart, separated by 

 a natural barrier, by the sides of which they often 

 fought. One day I found both nests being tended 

 by a single fish whose labours were incessant, both 



