88 



WITH HARD CHEEKS. 



Forth and Berwick bay ; from whence, southward and west- 

 ward, it may be found all round our coast to the Land^s End. 



The Fifteen-spined Stickleback, however, though common 

 on the coast, does not, like the other species of Sticklebacks, 

 ascend rivers ; and is rarely, if ever, taken in fresh water. It 

 is very voracious, swallowing indiscriminately the eggs and 

 fry of other fishes, worms, and marine insects. The collec- 

 tor of minute crustaceous animals should omit no opportunity 

 of examining the stomachs of littoral fishes, and of this spe- 

 cies particularly. I have found in them numerous examples 

 of the genus Mysis ; the oppossum shrimp of Montagu, de- 

 scribed and figured in the ninth volume of the Transactions of 

 the Linnsean Society, page 90, tab. 5, fig. 3, and so named 

 from the females having a pouch on the abdomen, formed by 

 four concave scales turned upwards, in which she carries the 

 ova, and afterwards the young. The species of this genus 

 form the subject of the second memoir of the Zoological 

 Researches of Mr. J. V. Thompson, of Cork. 



For the following account of the habits of the Fifteen- 

 spined Stickleback I am indebted to Mr. Couch : "It 

 keeps near rocks and stones clothed with sea-weeds, among 

 which it takes refuge upon any alarm. Though less active 

 than its brethren of the fresh water, it is scarcely less rapa- 

 cious. On one occasion, I noticed a specimen, six inches in 

 length, engaged in taking its prey from a clump of oreweed ; 

 in doing which, it assumed every posture between the horizon- 

 tal and perpendicular, with the head downward or upward, 

 thrusting its projecting snout into the crevices of the stems, 

 and seizing its prey with a spring. Having taken this fish 

 with a net, and transferred it to a vessel of water, in com- 

 pany with an eel of three inches in length, it was not long 

 before the latter was attacked and devoured head foremost, 

 not, indeed, altogether, for the eel was too large a morsel, 



