INSTINCTS AND EMOTIONS IN FISH. 39 



examples which I dissected could I find a trace of food through- 

 out the intestines of the males who had been engaged in this in- 

 teresting occupation*. The same phenomenon was observed in 

 two examples of Ariusjlssus which came from Cayenne, and were 

 presented to the British Museumf, and by Dr. Hensel in the 

 Brazilian Arius Commersonii. A fish from Lake Tiberias, Ohromis 

 paterfamilias, has been described^, the male of which carries the 

 eggs in the buccal cavity, the young even remaining there some 

 time after they have been hatched. It has been remarked of the 

 Siluroid genus Aspredo, that they take care of their progeny, and 

 the females possess appendages for the purpose of keeping the eggs 

 attached to the belly of the mother §. Some fishes, as the Salmon, 

 the Trout, and the Shad, have been known to discontinue feeding 

 during the breeding-season || . Among Batrachians we also see 

 that the males may carry the eggs until hatched : thus, in Mhino- 

 derma Darwinii, the males have an extraordinary brood-sac deve- 

 loped as a pouch, from the throat, and extending over a great 

 portion of the ventral surface of the animal. In this cavity a 

 number of living tadpoles have been observed by the Spanish 

 naturalist Jimenez de la Espada^f. 



Pish, however, have other modes of showing solicitude for the 

 welfare of their eggs, some of which I have already mentioned; but 

 a few more instances perhaps will not be considered superfluous. 

 In some interesting'observations respecting the construction of the 

 nest and the habits of the " Three-spined Stickleback," Gaster- 

 osteus aculeatus** , it has been remarked that after the depo- 

 sition of the eggs the nest was opened more to the action of the 

 water, and the vibratory motion of the body of the male fish, 

 hovering over its surface, caused a current of water to be propelled 



* Day, ' .Fishes of India,' p. 456. 



t Lortet, Oompt. Eend. 1875, Ixxxi. p. 1196. 



\ Giinther, Catal. v. p. 173. 



§ L. c. p. 268. 



|| Max Weber, Arch. f. Nat. (2) xlii. p. 169. 



1" Sprengel, Zeitschrift fur wissensch. Zool. vol. xxiv. part 4 (1877). 



** The G-asterosteus aculeatus, says Baker, Phil. Trans. Eoy. Soc, seek, out 

 and destroy all the young fry that come in their way, which are pursued with 

 the utmost eagerness and swallowed down without distinction provided they are 

 not too large. He continues that one did (on 4th of May) " devour in five hours' 

 time seventy-four young dace, which were about J of an inch long, and of the 

 thickness of a horsehair ; two days after it swallowed sixty-two, and would, I 

 am persuaded, have eaten as many every day could I have procured them for it." 



