6 A NEST-BflLDTNG FISH. 



Max Miiller, in his " Manners and Customs," describes the practice 

 of the Basques, that in Biscay the women rise immediately after 

 child-birth, while the husband goes to bed, taking the baby with him ; 

 and he mentions how Mr. Tylor, in his researches into the develop- 

 ment of civilisation, seems to despair of the existence of any custom 

 anywhere which cannot be matched somewhere else, and he asks, is 

 this a natural custom ? Well, certainly, we have it well matched here, 

 and may say it is a custom entirely natural to some fish. If man is a 

 microcosm of nature, the complete counterpart or prototype of the 

 practice is certainly found in the stickleback of our ponds. 



If this mid-husbandry was the practice in the early history of 

 mankind as he states, and it be probable, as we sometimes hear, that 

 mankind will revert, in the second childhood of the race, to like ways, 

 there may be some comfort to the strong-minded of the other sex in 

 the prospect that ultimately the males of the future must return 

 to the duties of the nurserv. 



