Sticklebacks and other Nest-making Fish. 261 



whether this nest-making peculiarity is shared by any other 

 fish besides sticklebacks. 



Yes it is, and the fact was observed by Aristotle three 

 hundred years before the Christian era. Not that the father 

 of natural history, it is probable, had ever seen it him- 

 self. He simply gives the story as it had been re- 

 lated to him. Aristotle speaks of two kinds of fish which 

 protect their eggs, one the Grlanis, of which he writes : — 

 <e Of river fish the male Glanis manifests great care for 

 its young; but the female, after having deposited her eggs 

 goes away, but the male continues to guard them, paying only 

 so much of attention to them as to drive away other fish, lest 

 they should carry the eggs away. He does this for the space 

 of forty or fifty days, till the fry have grown strong enough to 

 escape being devoured by other fish. The fishermen know 

 when it is guarding' its eggs, for it drives off other fish, and 

 utters a murmur as it rushes at them. So affectionately does 

 it watch its eggs, that when the fishermen attempt to bring 

 them out of deep into shallow water, the fish will not leave 

 them." Aristofcle also speaks of a fish called the Phycis, as 

 being the only marine species which manifests the same anxious 

 care for its brood. The glanis of the Ancient, and glanidi of 

 the Modern Greeks, is found in the Achelous in Acarnania, and 

 is a not very distant relative of the Sheat fish, or Silurus glanis, 

 of which we have recently heard so much. < The Phycis is 

 probably a species of G-oby, which Ouvier thought to be 

 identical with the go of the Venetians. This fish is found in 

 the Adriatic, and the male makes a nest of the roots of the 

 grass-wrack (Zostera marina), that long, ribbon-shaped weed, 

 with its beautiful leaves of grass green, common on our own 

 shores. I suspect that this is the fish of which Ovid has sung 

 in his Halieuticon* as the fish " which imitates under the waves 

 the pretty nests of the birds." 



The family of Siluridce are especially notable for their nest- 

 building habits. I have already mentioned the case of the 

 Glanis. Agassiz speaks of another member of this same 

 family. "Who can see the cat-fish (Pimelodus catus), ,} he 

 asks, "move about with its young brood, or the sun-fish 

 (Pomotis vulgaris) hovering over its eggs, and protecting them 

 for weeks, without remaining satisfied that the feeling which 

 prompts these acts is of the same kind with that which attaches 

 the cow to its calf." The genus Doras, containing two species 

 of nest-making fish, belongs to, this same family of Sihiridw. 

 In these instances both the male and female fish take part in 

 the construction of the nest, and protection of the eggs and 



* * Atque avium dulces nidos imitata sub undis." (line 122.) 



