Some Account of the Stickleback. 329 



seven ; pure white, sprinkled all over with smalt purplish red 

 spots, intermixed with a few small faint lines and mark- 

 ings of the same colour; size about the same as those of 

 the Greater Titmouse, but much more rounded at the smaller 

 end. Their food during the winter is principally the seed of 

 the reed, and so intent are they in searching for it, that 

 I have taken them with a birdlime twig attached to the end 

 of a fishing-rod. When alarmed by any sudden noise, or the 

 passing of a hawk, they utter their shrill musical notes (which 

 your correspondent has well described), and conceal them^ 

 selves among the thick bottom of the reeds, but soon resume 

 their station, climbing the upright stems with the greatest 

 facility. Their manners in feeding approach near to the Long- 

 tailed Titmouse, often hanging with the head downwards, and 

 turning themselves into the most beautiful attitudes. Their 

 food is not entirely the reed seed ; but insects and their larvae, 

 and the very young shell-snails of different kinds which are 

 numerous in the bottom of the reedlings. I have been enabled 

 to watch their motions when in search of insects, having, when 

 there has been a little wind stirring, been often within a few 

 feet of them, quite unnoticed, among the thick reeds. Was 

 it not for their note betraying them they would be but seldom 

 seen. The young, until the autumnal moult, vary in plumage 

 from the old birds ; a stripe of blackish feathers extends from 

 the hind part of the neck to the rump. Your correspondent 

 has been informed the males and females keep separate during 

 the winter, but I have always observed them in company; 

 they appear to keep in families until the pairing time, in the 

 manner of the Long-tailed Titmouse; differing in this respect, 

 that you will occasionally find them congregated in large 

 flocks, more particularly during the month of October, when 

 they are migrating from their breeding places. 



Yours, &c. 



Stoke Nayland^ March 31. 1830. 



J. D. Hoy. 



\ 



Art. VI. Some Account of the Stickleback Fish ( Gasterosteus 

 aculedtus). By O. 



Sir, 



I SEND you the following short account of a little fish 

 which is found in almost all our risers, brooks, and ponds, 

 well known by the name of Stickleback. It is the Gasteros- 

 teus aculeatus of Linnaeus {Jig. 84.), and is thus described by 



Vol. III. — No. 14. z 



