PLATE. XXXII. 
Pungitius alterum genus. Aldro. pise. p. 628. 
Spinarella Pusillus. Bell. La petite epinoche de mer. Block. 
Lesser Stickleback. Willughby Ichth. p. 342. 
Ten spined Stickleback. Penn. Brit. Zool. Z. p. 219. n. 2. 
1 he lesser Stickleback is allowed to be the most diminutive of 
Ae fish tribe known : very rarely exceeding, when full grown, an 
inch and a half in length, and is even seldom found of that size. 
Some specimens in our possession we should however add, that 
were taken in the open sea, are full as large as the G. Aculeatus, 
or three spined Stickleback found in our fresh waters : the colours 
were remarkably dear, greenish on the back, and silvery on the 
belly and sides, but in other particulars they agree, with such as we 
have found occasionally of a smaller size in little creeks on the sea 
shore. 
This species is of a rather more slender shape than the common 
kind, and the jaws a Ijttle longer in proportion : colour on the back, 
ohve; sides, yellowish, and beneath silvery. The number of the 
dorsal spines Linnaeus and Gmelin admit as the principal distinction 
of the several species in this genus : so far as relates to the kind 
before us, we may venture to say the number of them is not always 
Ae same. We have them with ten spines, as those autl^rs describe 
It; we have it also with nine; and one specimen with only eight. 
This has induced us to make a small, and it is conceived an allow- 
able addition to the specific character given by those authors. They 
resemble in a general manner the common kind as before remarked, 
but are destitute of those remarkable plates on the sides so conspi- 
