164 My Favourite Summer-Houses. 



work is by no means over, for he has to fight for his 

 young as before for his eggs. The old belief of our 

 Scandinavian ancestors was that the strength of the 

 vanquished passed into the conqueror. This seems to 

 be the case with Mr. Stickleback : the more he fights, 

 the more brilliantly coloured he becomes, while the 

 beaten lose all their colours, and subside into mere 

 sober browns and greys. No artist could paint the 

 bright tints that glow and shift and gleam on his sides. 

 When at last the young ones — mere specks of jelly with 

 a dark dot for an eye, by which they may be recog- 

 nised — are able to move about freely, the father stickle- 

 back has still a busy time of it. They are always 

 wanting to wander beyond the bounds he has assigned 

 for their exercises — a foot or two round the nest. Woe 

 betide any little item that strays beyond ; he is seized 

 by the parent, dragged back, and pitched into the nest 

 in great hurry and wrath, as it would seem, or has 

 dust blown into his eyes. They gain their liberty bit 

 by bit, as is best for other youngsters as well as stickle- 

 backs. But at last the young ones are able to shift for 

 themselves, and with the close of this duty the glory 

 of the parent stickleback dies out of him — his bright 

 hues fade away, and will not be resumed until another 

 spring comes round.* 



Well, we in our young days saw enough in the 

 stickleback to make us wonder at him and to admire 



* There are three varieties of sticklebacks. The three-spined is G. 

 aculeatus, and is either salt or fresh-water : the fifteen-spined is G. 

 spinachia vulgaris, and is common on the northern coasts of Europe, 

 and is entirely marine— it is larger than the others, measuring from 

 five to seven inches, and is sometimes caught in large numbers on 

 account of its oil, which has commercial value ; and finally, the nine 

 or ten spined (G. pungitius), which is confined entirely to fresh water, 

 and is the species with which we have been concerned. 



