2 
ON THE ROUGH-TAILED STICKLEBACK. 
become dry, except a few large ones which remain water-proof, or sun proof, the 
whole of the year. Almost before the lingering fragments of porous ice have 
disappeared from the pools, the Stanstickles begin to push their way up from the 
river, till some of them attain the smallest drains, I suppose for the purpose of 
spawning. They do not leap over an obstacle like the Salmon and Trout, but 
ascend progressively, like Eels. I have watched a company of several dozen, 
side by side, screwing their way up a tiny cataract, whose glancing waters fell 
over an embankment of sods a foot high ; no doubt they were assisted by holding 
on with their abdominal spines, which possibly may be the only use of those 
members. These little creatures were unconscious that they were going to 
certain death without being able to accomplish the object that prompted them 
to exertion; for they and their progeny perished when Dan Apollo, so celebrated 
for stealing “ the poet’s drop of ink,” had purloined the sum total of their element 
with equal dexterity. It was curious to observe the daily decrease of the waters 
J n most of their haunts, compelling them to take refuge in the deepest places, till 
eventually the different shoals were confined to detached holes or pools. The 
evaporating process continuing, their territories were abridged rapidly; at last 
they were reduced to almost as had a state as our unfortunate countrymen in the 
black hole of Calcutta. Another enemy next appeared, in the shape of the 
Hooded Crow, who mercilessly forked them out to glut the insatiate maws of his 
young carnivorous brood in the adjoining wood. 
I one day took a glass tumbler down to the drain which passed close to the 
house I was living in, and procured six fine specimens. I now convinced myself 
of what I had before suspected, viz., that there were two separate species in the 
habit of herding together, namely, the subject of the present paper (the Common 
Rough-tailed Stickleback, Gasterosteus trachurus ) and the Ten-spined Stickle¬ 
back (G. pungitius ). I took these to the house, and put them in a large 
transparent glass jar, a foot high, and about six or seven inches wide, and filled 
it up with Neva water, which every one there uses for culinary, and indeed for 
most purposes, as the well and pond water is very impure. They seemed much 
frightened, and continued swimming up and down with great rapidity, darting 
instantly from the finger when put against the part of the glass nearest them. 
I left them on a table by a window; and on looking at them again two hours 
afterwards, I found all, with the exception of one, a Mackerel-shaped fish, in a 
state of great exhaustion, with their noses pushed out of the water, as it were, 
ne.arly in a vertical position, blowing like Grampusses. In a few minutes one 
tumbled to the bottom, lay on his side, and, as I could scarcely perceive his gills 
move, I thought he was dead; but to my surprise he roused himself suddenly, 
and darted up and down several times in a boisterous convulsive manner, and 
then subsided again to the bottom of the vessel. “ There burst a noble heart,” 
