ct serious wounds.
Let us leave this nest for a time and try to find some more. Now that
you have once seen a nest, you will not have much difficulty in
finding others. Willy soon found another nest; "just look," he said,
"there are a lot of the tiniest little things close to the nest." Yes,
indeed, so there are; the eggs have hatched, and these are the little
fry; there is Father Stickles quite proud of his numerous family, and
quite ready to fight for them should any enemy be rash enough to
intrude, for you must know that sticklebacks, like many other fish, do
not object to eat the young fry of their neighbours, and if the parent
there--it is the male only that is the protector--were to be removed,
a hungry pack of other sticklebacks would crowd around and make sad
havoc amongst that happy little family. I remember some years ago
having once taken a father stickleback away from his nest, and, after
putting him in my collecting bottle, I sat down to watch the result.
Soon an invading army of other sticklebacks approached and attacked
the nest for the purpose of getting at the clusters of eggs it
contained. They pulled it about sadly, till I began to be sorry for
what I had done. I returned the captive-parent to the water; at first
he hardly knew where he was, and seemed confused, the result, no
doubt, of his confinement in the bottle; but he was not long in coming
to himself--he remembered his nest and the treasures it contained; he
saw that devastating army all around it, and, summoning all his
courage, the soldier-parent began an attack, now rushing at one and
now at another enemy, till he was left alone on the battle-field,
having thus gained, single-handed, a glorious victory indeed.

Well, we will take this one home, with nest and eggs it contains. You
see the nest is a mass of tangled grass roots and other weeds; now
that it is out of the water it is a shapeless mass. However, here is a
cluster of pinkish eggs, and if you look closely you will see two
little specks in each egg; so that the fish is being formed, for these
are the little thing's eyes. You can see, too, the tiny things jerking
their tails about every now and then. It is most interesting to watch
the care the parent takes of his little ones when hatched. Some few
years ago I put a male stickleback in a basin of water in charge of
his nest. When the young ones were hatched it was most curious to
notice his anxiety for their welfare. Of course young st