FISHES. 



269 



his exit at the opposite one, as though to prove to her 

 that everything was prepared for spawning."* 



The female now deposits her spawn in the nest ; and is 

 immediately repulsed by the male as earnestly as she had 

 been invited. The nest is then opened by the male to the 

 action of the water, which, by a peculiar motion of his 

 body, called in the previous extract " fanning," constantly 

 repeated, is driven in currents over the spawn. This pro- 

 ceeds for about ten days; at the end of which period the 

 male sets himself to destroy and scatter the materials of 

 the nest, so as to leave a space of clean gravel about 

 three inches in diameter. Let Mr Warington tell us what 

 next : — 



" Watching carefully, for a short time, to understand 

 what all this busy alteration indicated, I at last had the 

 pleasure of observing, by the aid of a long- focused pocket 

 lens, some of the young fry — of course most minnte crea- 

 tures — fluttering upwards here and there, by a movement 

 half swimming, half leaping, and then falling rapidly again 

 upon or between the clean pebbles of the shingle-bottom. 

 This arose from their having the remainder of the yelk 

 still attached to their body, which, acting as a weight, 

 caused them to sink the moment the swimming effort had 

 ceased. 



" Around all the space above mentioned, and across it 

 in every direction, the male fish, as the guardian, conti- 

 nually moved. And now his labours became still more 

 arduous than they had been before, and his vigilance was 

 taxed to the utmost extreme ; for the other fishes, three 

 of them twenty times larger than himself, as soon as they 



* " Annals of Nat. Hist." Oct. 1852. 



