LUMP SUCKER. 2OI 



if they were chickens. Their frolicsome ways make 

 the young exceedingly interesting and amusing 

 objects. The male fish is believed to " mount guard" 

 over the eggs, after the fashion set by the little 

 stickleback. Some of the lump fish often weigh ten 

 or twelve pounds when full grown. 



Speaking of the stickleback reminds us of a 

 common species, generally known as the "fifteen- 

 spined stickleback" (G aster osteus spinachia), the largest 



Fig. 133- 



Fifteen-spined Stickleback (Gasterostcus spinachia). 



of its kind. This pretty fish is never more than six 

 inches in length, but its body is exceedingly long in 

 comparison with its breadth, so that it can dart 

 through the water with the rapidity of an arrow. 

 Like its fresh-water relative, this fish constructs, and 

 even stitches and glues together, a nest, usually of 

 sea-weed, and the male defends the eggs laid there so 

 determinedly that he appears to be an animated 

 arrow, constructed for the special purpose of "charging" 

 other and huger fishes desirous of making a meal of 

 the nutritious ova. Its spines are capable of inflicting 



