Then comes a curious result. The conqueror assumes brighter colours and a more insolent demeanour; his green is tinged with gold, his scarlet is of a triple dye, and he charges more furiously than ever at intruders, or those whom he is pleased to consider as such. But the vanquished warrior is disgraced; he retires humbly to some obscure retreat; he loses his red, and green, and gold uniform, and becomes a plain civilian in drab.
Sometimes I have brought on a battle royal between the guardians of several palaces, by dropping in the midst of them a temptation which they could not resist. This was generally a fine fat grub taken from a caddis case. The caddis is large and white, and so can be seen to a considerable distance.
As this sank in the water, there would be a general rush at it, and the ensuing contention was amusing in the extreme. First, one would catch it in his mouth and shoot off; half-a-dozen others would unite in chase, overtake the too fortunate one, seize the grub from all sides, and tug desperately, their tails flying, their fins at work, and the whole mass revolving like a wheel, the centre of which was the caddis worm.
It would be swallowed almost immediately, but the mouth of the stickleback is much too small to admit an entire caddis, and the skin of the grub is too tough to be easily pierced or torn. Half-an-hour often elapses before the great question is settled, and the caddis eaten.
The rapidity of the evolutions and the fierceness of the struggle must be seen to be appreciated—and it is a spectacle easily to be witnessed; wherever there are sticklebacks, caddis worms are nearly certainly found, and it only needs to extract one of these from its case and deposit it judiciously in the water.
The stickleback is a hardy little fish, and can easily be kept in the aquarium, if plenty of room be given to it. It has even been trained to live in seawater, by adding bay-salt to the water in which it dwelt; so that the plan of pickling salmon alive, by a judicious admixture of vinegar and allspice with the water, has something to which to appeal as collateral evidence.
The other representative of the fishes is a very curious one, and can be easily observed. It is called the “Lampern,” and is shown in the accompanying figure.
THE LAMPERN.
In some parts of England the lampern goes by the name of “Seven-eyes,” in allusion to the row of eye-like holes that may be seen extending along the side of the throat. These apertures are the openings by which the water passes from the gills.