40 
ANIMAL CURIOSITIES 
During the incubation period the devoted 
father abstains from all food, and even after 
the fry are hatched he is always ready to offer 
them a haven of refuge in times of danger by 
opening his mouth and allowing them to 
enter. 
The remarkable habit of carrying the eggs 
in the mouth is by no means confined to the 
foregoing, for some perch-like fish belonging 
to the Cichlidae family indulge in a similar 
practice, although it is the females and not 
the males that nurse the eggs. With one of 
these, known in Egypt as the “ bolti,” the 
male prepares a nest for the accommodation 
of the female. Mr. C. A. Boulenger gives an 
extremely interesting account of his personal 
observations of this fish, published in the 
Proceedings of the Zoobgical Society . He 
writes : “ The nests are merely basin-shaped 
holes scooped out in the sand, usually among 
reeds or tamarish bushes. The largest one 
I saw measured just over a yard in diameter 
and one-and-a-half feet deep. I had the good 
fortune to be able to watch a bolti at work 
on one of these nests. The latter was nearly 
completed when I commenced my observations 
at the beginning of May, and was occupied by 
a large male; there were no signs of a female 
in the neighbourhood. The male remained 
