164 PROSE EALIEtfTICS. 



glow as though filled with red-hot coals, we had seen 

 quite enough to have indelibly impressed on our me- 

 mory the form of this most interesting fish. To linger 

 till the twihght prevailed outside as well as in, was 

 hardly a matter of choice ; and when the courteous old 

 man (who had marked his visitor's pleasure with evident 

 satisfaction) at length permitted him to withdraw, it was 

 not till a cordial invitation had been frankly tendered 

 and accepted of renewing an acquaintance with the sin- 

 gular live-stock of the cavern. 



Before taking leave of the Gurnard and his group, we 

 shall devote a moment to those minikin fish, the gas- 

 rostei, or sticklebacks, of which, though there are no 

 ancient records extant, it is to be presumed the old Ro- 

 mans could hardly have been ignorant, since they abound 

 throughout Italy (as, indeed, everywhere else), and con- 

 stitute the ' frittura ' of many a gallant sportsman, who 

 shoots this small game from a crazy gun, loaded with 

 dust-shot, or inveigles it into close-meshed nets or osier 

 weirs. There can, therefore, we think, be little doubt 

 that the ancient, as well as the modern, Roman school- 

 boy was wont to whip this smallest of fresh-water inmates 

 out of the Tiber with a thorn or crooked pin, though it 

 may very fairly be doubted whether any of those ante- 

 papal urchins had so costly a material as a glass bottle 

 to put them in. Sticklebacks are especially abundant 

 in the Nar, whence they find their way into the Tiber 

 and visit Rome, as no doubt they were in the habit of 

 doing from her earhest days. In spite of their very 

 diminutive . size, sticklebacks are by no means without 

 use ; the extreme fecundity of the tribe compensating 

 for personal smallness in its members ; they are exten- 

 sively employed, says Cuvier, both ' in England and in 

 the north, to manure land, to feed pigs, and to make 

 oil.^ The trivial names for this fish are extremely vari- 

 ous ; epinoche in French, stichling, German, steckelbaar, 



