154 ASSOCIATION OF ORGANISMS THE WEB OF LIFE 



tion. The most aldermanic, with his chin upon a heart-leaf, 

 which serves for a napkin to his drooling chaps, under this 

 northern shore quaffs a deep draught of the once-scorned water, 

 and passes round a cup with the ejaculation tr-r-r-oonk r 

 tr-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r-oonk! and straightway comes over the water 

 from some distant cove the same pass - word repeated, where 

 the next in seniority and girth has gulped down to his mark; 

 and when this observance has made the circuit of the shores, 

 then ejaculates the master of ceremonies, with satisfaction, 

 tr-r-r-oonk, and each in his turn repeats the same down to the 

 least distended, leakiest, and flabbiest-paunched, that there be 

 no mistake; and then the bowl goes round again and again, 

 until the sun disperses the morning mist, and only the patriarch 

 is not under the pond, but vainly bellowing troonk from time 

 to time, and pausing for a reply." 



COURTSHIP AND MATING OF FISHES (PiSCES) 



THE LAW OF BATTLE. - - During the spawning - season a 

 number of male fishes are very pugnacious, fighting one another 

 on the least provocation. We may take as examples the Salmon 

 (Salmo salar] and Three - Spined Stickleback (Gasterosteus 

 aculeatus). At the time when Salmon make their annual ascent 

 of rivers the lower jaw of the mature male grows out into a 

 sort of hook (fig. 1114), which is supposed to serve as a pro- 

 tection against the furious charges of his rivals, while at the 

 same time his teeth become long and sharp, being frequently 

 over half an inch in length. Two males have been observed 

 fighting together a whole day, and the mortality is often con- 

 siderable. 



The little Stickleback is no less savage during the days of 

 courtship, at which time he becomes of a vivid red colour, 

 that has earned him the local name of " robin". Fred Smith 

 (in The Boyhood of a Naturalist) thus graphically describes a 

 combat: " Oh, we needn't be so cautious in approaching, at 

 least not this ditch, for the stickleback is monarch of all he 

 surveys here; and though just a bit scared when our shadows 

 fall athwart the water, he immediately reappears in a defiant 

 attitude which there is no mistaking. I speak of ' he ', be- 

 cause the only stickleback at present visible, and which I knew 



