FISHES. 
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 ot his 
body, called in the previous extract “ fanning,” constantly 
repeated, is driven iu 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 miuute crea- 
^ ures — fluttering upwards here aud 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, aud his vigilance was 
taxed to the utmost extreme ; for the other fishes, three 
of them twenty times larger thau himselt, as soon as they 
* “ Annals of Nat. Hist.” Oct. 1852. 
