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He uses threads, which come from his own body. He swims round the nest, again and again; and, each time, a thread is spun, binding the clump of weed into a safe, tight nest for the eggs. When the task is done there is a weed-nursery about the size of your fist. Now all is ready for the eggs to be laid by the female Stickleback.
When the little ones appear, he seems to think he has done his duty. So away, he swims, not staying, like the father Stickleback, to guard the youngsters. Again we see that the father, and not the mother, is the builder and nurse. That very strange creature, the Pipe-fish, has the most peculiar nursery of all. He uses no building material! No made-up nest of weed or sand for him!
"Then he had better not have the honour," said Pitskiver. "Bristles, you'll send it to Harley Street. First view is every thing." "Really, gentlemen, you are both such exquisite judges of the arts, and such discriminating patrons of artists, that I find it difficult to determine between you. Shall we let Stickleback settle the point himself?"
Day by day his excursions grew longer and higher. Nor were they without adventure. Sometimes he would be caught in the wake of a stickleback, and would reach the bottom spinning, or on his back. He was lucky to reach it at all. Sometimes a sunbeam's dazzling radiance would check him in mid-career, and his callow eyes would take an hour to recover. It was a month before his eyelids developed.
All was fish that came to Tam's net: tadpoles, newts, and stickleback from the ponds, beetles from the dung-heaps, green crabs from the sea-shore nay, even in time such larger prizes as hedgehogs, moles, and nestfuls of birds. Nothing delighted him so much as to be out in the fields, hunting for and taming these his natural pets.
There was a little heap of split-peas, three or four remarkably small potatoes at least, I suppose they were potatoes; if not, they were pea-nuts boiled soft, some caraway-seeds, a very young-looking fish, apparently of the stickleback breed, and some red paint. It was quite a little dinner all to itself. What the red paint was for, I could not understand.
Egremont. 'Whether it is fully worth the doing is the question, said the vicar. 'Grass and shade do not despise, said Miss Mary. 'There surely must be some ecclesiastical remains, said the young man. 'And there is a river, added the vicar. 'I shall get a stickleback for my aquarium, cried Nuttie. 'We shall make some discoveries for the Scientific Society.
The bell now and then rang violently, but I fear it was only sounding an appeal from a voracious stickleback whose appetite had got the better of his rage. So it went on every morning. The minnows had learned what the bell meant, and though usually defeated in the fight, they in reality had their betters as servants to ring the bell and call them to meals.
"Certainly, my dear sir but Mr Pitskiver and Stickleback, they are friends, you know, Mr Whalley, and perhaps Mr P.'s interest may be useful in getting the great artist an order to ornament some of the new buildings. I have some thoughts of recommending him to offer the very statue we talk of for the front of the Mansion-house. A hint on the subject has already appeared in the Universal."
All was new to him, for he did not even know what a stickleback might be, and he longed to see some of these gorgeous fellows that were all over "gold and green and scarlet."
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