RIVER GARDENS; 
emerging from the spawn. He is very ravenous, 
and it is stated by Baker, as quoted by Orbigny, that 
one individual has been observed to devour seventy- 
four vaudoises within an hour. In some parts of 
the Continent the Sticklebacks are so abundant, 
after their spawning season, that they are used for 
manure, and pigs are fed with them. In eastern 
Prussia oil is extracted from them; and the Kamts- 
chadales dry the Gasterosteus obolarius in large 
quantities for the winter food of their numerous dogs. 
In England also they are, in some seasons, almost 
equally abundant. At Spalding, in Lincolnshire, 
Pennant informs us that they appear occasionally 
in such large numbers, that be recollects a man who 
earned four shillings a day by selling them at sixpence 
a bushel. These shoals at Spalding appear every 
seven or eight years, coming up from the Wellan. 
Their flesh is of an agreeable flavour, and forms 
very wholesome food, making an exceedingly nutri¬ 
tious broth; but their diminutive size has secured 
them against becoming very generally articles of 
human food. Their cuirass-like armour and spines 
secure them also against the assaults of other fish, 
even the most voracious; but they have a fatal enemy 
in a small crustaceous parasite, which attaches itself 
to their bodies, and, sucking the blood, soon destroys 
