A certain pond in the country was once peopled with a number of
turtles, frogs, and fishes which I came to consider my pets, and
which at last grew so tame that I fed them from my hands. Among them,
however, were four or five little sticklebacks that lived under the
shade of a big willow, and these were so quarrelsome that I generally
fed them apart from the rest. But sometimes all met, and then the
feast usually was ended by the death of a minnow. For, shocking to
say, whenever there was a dispute for the food, some one of the little
fishes was almost sure to be devoured by the hungry sticklebacks.
These stickleback-and-minnow combats, after a while, came to be of
daily occurrence, and the reason for this was a singular one, which I
must explain.
Under the willow shade, and from one of the branches, I had hung a
miniature "belfry," containing a tiny brass bell, and had led the
string into the water, letting it go down to a considerable depth. At
first, I tied bait at intervals upon the line, and the sticklebacks,
of course, seized upon it, and thus rang the bell. Generally the
ringing was done in a very grave and proper way, although sometimes,
when the bait was too tightly tied, the quick peals sounded like a
call to a fire.
[Illustration]
I kept up this system of baiting the string for about a week, until
I thought they understood it, and then replaced the worms by bits of
stone. As I expected, the next morning, as I looked through the grass
and down into the water, tinkle! tinkle! rang the bell, and I knew my
little friends were saying, "Good-morning!" and expected a breakfast.
You may be sure they got it. I put my hand down, and up they came, and
got one worm apiece; and as I raised my hand, down they rushed, and
away went the bell, in an uproarious peal, that must have startled the
whole neighborhood. I was quick to respond, and they soon learned to
ring the bell before coming to the surface; in fact, if they saw me
pass, I always heard their welcome greeting. But to return to the
minnows.
I generally fed them first, about twenty feet up the bank; but one
morning I found one or two had followed me down to the residence of
the stickleback family. They met with a rude reception, however, and,
to avoid making trouble, the next day I went to the willow first. But
no sooner had the bell begun to ring, than I saw a lot of ripples
coming down, and in a second the two factions were in mortal combat.
The sticklebacks were fighting not only for breakfast, but for their
nests, which were near by; and they made sad work of the poor minnows,
who, though smart in some things, did not know when they were whipped,
and so kept up the fight, though losing one of their number nearly
every morning. 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.
Finally, they succeeded, by force of great numbers, in driving away
their pugnacious little rivals, and the bell hung silent; for, strange
to say, they knew what the sound meant, but I could never teach them
to ring it, when they could rise and steal the worm from my hand
without. But I am inclined to think it was more laziness than
inability to learn, as they afterward picked up readily some much more
difficult tricks. I taught them to leap from the water into my hand,
and lie as if dead; and having arranged a slide of polished wood upon
the bank, by placing worms upon it I soon had them leaping out and
sliding down like so many boys coasting in the winter. That they
afterward did it for amusement I know, as I often watched them
unobserved when there was nothing to attract but the fun of sliding.
This kind of amusement is not uncommon with many other animals,
particularly seals, which delight in making "slides" on the icy
shores.
[ILLUSTATION]