pugnacious, whilst the females are quite pacific. Their battles are
at times desperate; for these puny combatants fasten tight on each
other for several seconds, tumbling over and over again until their
strength appears completely exhausted. With the rough-tailed
stickleback (G. trachurus) the males whilst fighting swim round and
round each other, biting and endeavouring to pierce each other with
their raised lateral spines. The same writer adds (5. Loudon s
Magazine of Natural History, vol. iii. 1830, p. 331.), the bite of
these little furies is very severe. They also use their lateral spines
with such fatal effect, that I have seen one during a battle absolutely
rip his opponent quite open, so that he sank to the bottom and died.
When a fish is conquered, his gallant bearing forsakes him; his gay
colours fade away; and he hides his disgrace among his peaceable
companions, but is for some time the constant object of his conqueror s
persecution.
The male salmon is as pugnacious as the little stickleback; and so is
the male trout, as I hear from Dr. Gunther. Mr. Shaw saw a violent
contest between two male salmon which lasted the whole day; and Mr. R.
Buist, Superintendent of Fisheries, informs me that he has often
watched from the bridge at Perth the males driving away their rivals,
whilst the females were spawning. The males are constantly fighting
and tearing each other on the spawning-beds, and many so injure each
other as to cause the death of numbers, many being seen swimming near
the banks of the river in a state of exhaustion, and apparently in a
dying state. (6. The Field, June 29, 1867. For Mr. Shaw s Statement,
see Edinburgh Review, 1843. Another experienced observer (Scrope s
Days of Salmon Fishing, p. 60) remarks that like the stag, the male
would, if he could, keep all other males away.) Mr. Buist informs me,
that in June 1868, the keeper of the Stormontfield breeding-ponds
visited the northern Tyne and found about 300 dead salmon, all of which
with one exception were males; and he was convinced that they had lost
their lives by fighting.
[Fig. 27. Head of male common salmon (Salmo salar) during the
breeding-season. [This drawing, as well as all the others in the
present chapter, have been executed by the well-known artist, Mr. G.
Ford, from specimens in the British Museum, under the kind
superintendence of Dr. Gunther.]
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