sort of
bird-like imitation of milk. Only the cow or the goat takes grass or
leaves, chews, swallows, and digests them, and manufactures from them
in her own body that much more nutritive substance, milk, with which
all mammals feed their infant offspring.

Now, after this rather long preamble, I am going to show you in this
present article a few other examples of special care taken of the
young in certain quarters where it might be least expected. Fish are
not creatures from which we look for marked domestic virtues: yet we
may find them there abundantly. Let us begin with that familiar friend
of our childhood, the common English stickleback.

Which of us cannot look back in youth to the mysteries of the
stickleback fisheries? Captains courageous, we sailed forth with bent
pin and piece of thread, to woo the wily quarry with half an inch of
chopped earthworm. For stickleback abound in every running stream and
pond in England. They are beautiful little creatures, too, when you
come to examine them, great favorites in the fresh-water aquarium; the
male in particular is exquisitely colored, his hues growing brighter
and his sheen more conspicuous at the pairing season. There are many
species of sticklebacks--in England we have three very different
kinds--but all are alike in one point which gives them their common
name, that is to say, in their aggressive and protective prickliness.
They are armed against all comers. The dorsal fin is partly replaced
in the whole family by strong spines or "stickles," which differ in
number in the different species. One of our English sorts is a lover
of salt water: he lives in the sea, especially off the Cornish coast,
and has fifteen stickles or spines; on which account he is commonly
known as the Fifteen-spined Stickleback; our other two sorts belong to
fresher waters, and are known as the Ten-spined and the Three-spined
respectively.

The special peculiarity of the male stickleback consists in the fact
that he is, above all things, a model father. In his acute sense of
parental responsibility he has few equals. When spring comes round, he
first exhibits his consciousness of his coming charge by suddenly
enduing himself in a glowing coat of many colors and of iridescent
brilliancy. That is in order to charm the eyes of the prospective
mate, or rather mates, for I may as well confess the sad truth at once
that our amiable friend is a good parent but an abandoned polygamist.
We all k