THE.TEN-SP1NED STICKLEBACK. 



225 



it would be engaged for half a minute in adjusting it. The nest, when taken up, did 

 not separate, but hung together like a piece of wool." 



This interesting little account is, as Mr. Couch remarks, doubly valuable, as not be- 

 ing the work of a professed naturalist, but of an observant lover of nature, who saw 

 some curious phenomena, and recorded them in simple and unpretending language. 

 The fifteen-spined Stickleback, a marine species, also makes a nest, though hardly of 

 so careful a construction. 



The Three-spined Stickleback is very fond of inhabiting the mouths of rivers where 

 they empty themselves into the sea, the brackish water appearing to suit its constitution. 

 It can therefore be easily acclimatized to new conditions, and a specimen that has been 

 taken from an inland stream can soon be brought to inhabiting the water of a marine 

 aquarium, though such water is usually, in consequence of evaporation, more salt than 

 that of the sea. 



As a general fact, the flesh of the Stickleback is despised as an article of food, and 

 in my opinion wrongly so. I have often partaken of these little fish fried, or even 

 baked, and think them decidedly palatable delicate, crisp, and well-flavored, with the 

 slightest possible dash of bitter that gives a unique piquancy to the dish. At all events, 

 the young of the Stickleback and the minnow frequently do duty as whitebait, and the 

 guests never discover the deception. Yet there is hardly any place in England where 

 even the starving poor will condescend to eat this delicate and nutritious little fish, 

 which can be scooped by thousands out of any streamlet, and does not require more 

 trouble in cooking than the red herring. The only use that at present seems to be 

 made of this fish is to spread it over the ground as manure, an office which it certainly 

 fulfils admirably, but might, in all probability, be better employed in feeding man than 

 manuring his fields. An oil is sometimes expressed from them, and the refuse carted off 

 to the fields, but the value of the oil seems hardly to repay the trouble of pro- 

 curing it. 



Mr. Yarrell mentions a considerable number of British Sticklebacks ; but Dr. Gtinther, 

 in his elaborate catalogue of Acanthopterygian fishes in the British Museum, comprises 

 several species together, as only varieties and not different species. For example, the 

 QUARTER-ARMED STICKLEBACK (Gasterosteus gymnurus) or SMOOTH-TAILED STICKLE- 

 BACK, known by its four or five scaly plates above the pectoral fin ; the HALF-ARMED 

 STICKLEBACK (Gasterosteus semiarmatus\ where the plates extend throughout half the 

 length of the body; the HALF-MAILED STICKLEBACK (Gasterosteus semilori<:atus\vi\i&re 

 they extend still farther ; and the NEW YORK STICKLEBACK (Gasterosteus Nweboracenris), 

 are all considered as being only varieties of the species which has just been denoted. 



THE left-hand figure on page 223 represents the TEN-SPINED STICKLEBACK. This 

 fish is nearly, if not quite, as plentiful as the three-spined species, and is perhaps the 

 smallest of our river-fish. 



It may be readily distinguished by the nine or ten spines upon the back, all in front 

 of the dorsal fin, and by the absence of plates upon the sides. All the Sticklebacks 

 are voracious little creatures, and I am told by an angler friend that they destroy 

 quantities of the spawn of other fish, and seize upon the young as soon as they are 

 hatched. He also informs me that they are extremely capricious in their choice of 

 locality. For example, at the head of a mill-stream they may be found by thousands, 

 while at the tail of the same stream not a single Stickleback can be found. There is 

 a still part of the New River, where they are so plentiful that the roach fisher is entirely 

 baffled in his sport by these little creatures eating his bait before it sinks to its full 

 depth, and yet the middle of the stream is quite free from them. 



The Ten-spined Stickleback does not like salt water, and cannot be acclimatized to 

 the marine aquarium like its three-spined relative. All the Sticklebacks are remarkable 

 for the comparative nakedness of the skin, which for the most part bears no scales, as 

 in the generality of fish, and in the Ten-spined species is wholly naked. The place of 

 the scales is supplied by certain bony or scaly plates upon the side, and it is the 

 nakedness of the skin which permits the colors of these little fish to glow with such 

 bright and changeful hues. 

 '5 



