342 NOTES ON PISH AND FISHING. 



persevering and unrelenting manner, chases his rival from one part of 

 the tub to another until fairly exhausted with fatigue. They also 

 use their spines with such fatal effect that, incredible as it may appear, 

 I have seen one during a battle absolutely rip his opponent quite open, 

 so that he sank to the bottom and died. I have occasionally known 

 three or four parts of the tub taken possession of by as many other 

 little tyrants, who guard their territories with the strictest vigilance, 

 and the slightest invasion invariably brings on a battle. These are 

 the habits of the male fish alone ; the females are quite pacific, appear 

 fat, as if full of roe, and never assume the brilliant colours of the male, 

 by whom, as far as I have observed, they are unmolested." 



Here is another description of a most interesting feature 

 in stickleback life : — 



" I daresay it will surprise many of my readers to be told that the 

 sticklebacks are the only British fresh-water fish that build complete 

 nests, like birds, in which to deposit their eggs ; and that during the 

 subsequent spawning process they display in their diminutive bodies 

 a courage, solicitude, and even affection, almost without a parallel 

 amongst fish. If the pike is the tyrant of the water, the stickleback 

 is certainly entitled to be called its knight errant. Now, with bated 

 weapons, and glittering in green and purple, he tenderly woos the 

 object of his devotion, or armed cap-a-pie patrols, a watchful sentinel, 

 before her nuptial bower ; now he fiercely disputes with rival claimants 

 the possession of some favourite ' coign of vantage,' or sheathed in 

 armour of proof and bristling with spines, charges, like a Paladin of 

 old, through the liquid plains in search of other sticklebacks as pug- 

 nacious and more penetrable than himself." 



The stickleback constructs the nest here spoken of with 

 as much ingenuity as any bird, carrying in its mouth 

 small pieces of plants and weeds often from a considerable 

 distance. These, with minute particles of sand, it collects 

 into one spot, and then smears them over with a glutinous 

 secretion which makes them adhere together. It then 

 presses them from time to time by a peculiar movement 

 of the body so as to give them the required shape, fre- 



