SUBAQUEOUS LIFE— STICKLEBACKS AND NEST. 



This plate represents a group of fifteen-spined sticklebacks busily employed in 

 making their nests. To the left is seen a curious piece of marine architecture, 

 mentioned by Mr. Couch, the -well-known ichthyologist. A pair of sticklebacks 

 "had made their nest " in the loose end of a rope, from which the separated strands 

 hung out about a yard from the surface, over a depth of four or five fathoms, and 

 to which the materials could only have been brought, of course, in the mouth of 

 the fish; from the distance of about thirty feet. They were formed of the usual 

 aggregation of the finer sorts of green and red sea- weed, but they were so matted 

 together in the hollow formed by the untwisted strands of the rope that the mass 

 constituted an oblong ball of nearly the size of the fist, in which had been deposited 

 the scattered assemblage of spawn, and which was bound into shape with a thread 

 of animal substance, which was passed through and through in various directions, 

 ■while the rope itself formed an outside covering to the wholp." 



