FISH — EMOTIONS. • 243 



fists placed together. The whole consisted, to all appearance, 

 of nothing but gulf- weed, the branches and leaves of which were, 

 however, evidently knit together, and not merely balled into a 

 roundish mass. The elastic threads which held the gulf-weed 

 together were beaded at intervals, sometimes two or three beads 

 being close together, or a branch of them hanging from the 

 cluster of threads. This nest was full of eggs scattered through- 

 out the mass, and not placed together in a cavity. It was 

 evidently the work of the GhiroTiectes. This rocking fish-cradle 

 is carried along as an undying arbour, affording at the same 

 time protection and afterwards food for its living freight. It is 

 suggested that the fish must have used their peculiar pectoral 

 fins when constructing this elaborate nest. 



The well-known tinker or ten-spined stickleback {Gaster- 

 osteus pungitius) is one of our indigenous fish which constructs 

 a nest. On May 1, 1864, a male ^ was placed in a well-estab- 

 lished aquarium of moderate size, to which, after three days, 

 two ripe females were added. Their presence at once roused 

 him into activity, and he soon began to build a nest of bits of 

 dirt and dead fibre, and of growing confervoid filaments, upon a 

 jutting point of rock among some interlacing branches of 

 Myriophyllum spicatum — all the time, however, frequently in- 

 terrupting his labours to pay his addresses to the females. This 

 was done in most vigorous fashion, he swimming, by a series of 

 little jerks, near and about the female, even pushing against her 

 with open mouth, but usually not biting. After a little 

 coquetting she responds and follows him, swimming just above 

 him as he leads the way to the nest. When there, the male 

 commences to flirt — he seems unaware of its situation, will not 

 swim to the right spot, and the female, after a few ineffectual 

 attempts to find the proper passage into it, turns tail to swim 

 away, but is then viciously pursued by the male. When he 

 first courts the female, if she, not being ready, does not soon 

 respond, he seems quickly to lose his temper, and, attacking 

 her with great apparent fury, drives her to seek shelter in some 

 crevice or dark corner. The coquetting of the male near the 

 nest, which seems due to the fact that he really has not quite 

 finished it, at length terminates by his pushing his head well 

 into the entrance of the nest, while the female closely follows 

 him, placing herself above him, and apparently much excited. 

 As he withdraws she passes into the nest, and pushes quite 

 through it, after a very brief delay, during which she deposits 

 her ova. The male now fertilises the eggs, and drives the female 



* Kansom, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 1865, xvi., p. 449. 

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