DWELLINGS. l8S 



It is scarcely necessary to recall the skilful art with 

 which the Stickleback which inhabits all our streams 

 plaits its nest and remains sentinel near it. (Fig. 

 26.) This fish has indeed monopolised our admira- 

 tion, and is considered as the most skilful, if not the 

 only aquatic architect. Yet, besides those which I have 

 already mentioned, there is one which equals the 

 Stickleback in the skill it displays in constructing a 

 shelter for its spawn. This is the Gobius niger met 

 on our coasts, especially in the estuaries of rivers. 

 The male interlaces and weaves the leaves of algae, 

 etc, and when he has finished his preparations, he 

 goes to seek females, and leads them one by one to 

 lay in the retreat he has built. Then he remains in 

 the neighbourhood until the young come out, ready 

 to throw himself furiously with his spines on any 

 imprudent intruders. 



Dwellings woven with greater art. — Without doubt 

 the class of Birds furnishes the most expert artisans 

 in the industry of the woven dwelling. In our own 

 country we may see them seeking every day to right 

 and left, carrying a morsel of straw, a pinch of moss, 

 a hair from a horse's tail, or a tuft of wool caught in 

 a bush. They intermingle these materials, making the 

 framework of the construction with the coarser pieces, 

 keeping those that are warmer and more delicate for 

 the interior. These nests, attached to a fork in a 

 branch or in a shrub, hidden in the depth of a thicket, 

 are little masterpieces of skill and patience. To 

 describe every form and every method would fill a 

 volume. But I cannot pass in silence those which 

 reveal a science sure of itself, and which are not very 

 inferior to what man can do in this line. The 

 Lithuanian Titmouse {/Egitlialus pendulinus), whose 



