The Pipe-fishes are very near neighbours of the Sea-horses, and derive their name from the thin elongated shape of their bodies, together with the fact that the jaws are prolonged to form a long pipe-like snout, at the extremity of which the mouth opens. These fishes are very lively in all their movements, and dart through the water so quickly that in many cases the eye is unable to follow them. Like the Sea-horses, the male Pipe-fishes protect and tend their progeny, and exhibit an equal attachment to their young. These latter features are also well exemplified by the familiar Sticklebacks of our ponds and streams. The latter fishes actually build nests for the reception and care of their eggs, the nests being made chiefly or solely by the males; whilst on the latter, during the process of hatching and in the upbringing of the young, devolves the chief care of protecting and looking after the welfare of the progeny. These instances of the care and duties which devolve on the males, instead of on the mother-parents, appear to reverse the more natural order, which almost universally obtains in the case of both lower and higher animals. Of the oddities which fish-life presents, probably none are more remarkable than those of the Archer or Shooting Fishes, which inhabit the seas of Japan and of the Eastern Archipelago. When kept in confinement, these fishes may be seen to shoot drops of water from their elongated jaws at flies and other insects which attract their attention, and to strike their prey with unerring aim at distances of three or four feet. Another notable species of Shooting-fishes is the Chætodon. This latter form possesses a prominent beak or muzzle, consisting of the elongated jaws; and from this beak, as from the barrel of a rifle, the fish shoots its watery missiles at the insects which alight on the vegetation that fringes its native waters. The old saying which compares great helplessness to the state of 'a fish out of water,' does not always find a corroborative re-echo in natural history science. As every one knows, different fishes exhibit very varying degrees of tenacity of life when removed from their native element. Thus a herring dies almost immediately on being taken out of water; whilst, on the other hand, the slippery eels will bear removal from their habitat for twenty-four hours or longer; and we have known of Blennies--such as the Shanny (_Blennius pholis_)--surviving a long journey of some forty-eight hours' duration, when packed amid some damp sea-weed in a box.