The sticklebacks are like the newts of the duck-pond in quite a number of ways. Not to look at, of course, for one has legs while the other has fins; but in several of their habits. In the love-making times, when the he-newts show their gorgeous coats, the stickleback lords put on a brilliant uniform of glittering green and scarlet and gold. Like the he-newts, they battle between themselves, and more than once we have watched a noble skirmish in the deep water under a tussock of grass. We have seen the stickleback lords dash at each other again and again, trying to rip each other up with their sharp spears, and, at the last, we have seen the conqueror sailing proudly away, even more gorgeous than before. The Imp loves the sticklebacks because they are so bold and jolly and move so quickly and so jerkily that it is hard to follow them. But the Elf loves them for quite another reason. She loves them because they are homely. Most of the water people, like the frogs and newts, take no bother at all about their eggs, but just leave them to themselves without ever caring whether they hatch or no. But the stickleback is as careful as a blackbird, and builds a little nest for the eggs down among the weeds on the bottom of the ditch, and stays there watching and guarding till they hatch out into little stickles. That is why the Elf loves sticklebacks. They do look after their children a little. Later in the year we see the shoals of little sticklebacks, not so big as pen-nibs, who have left their nests in the ditch, and are swimming away to see the world for themselves. Often we lie on the bank and tell each other stories about them. And all these stories begin: "Once upon a time there was a little stickleback, one of a shoal," and all the stories end: "So the little stickleback drove his enemy away in a fright, and swam back to his nest glowing with colour and pride." For, of course, by the time the story is finished the little stickleback has grown into a big stickleback and has a nest of his own. Besides the sticklebacks and minnows there are a great many other fishes among the water-folk, but we do not meet them so often, and most of them live in bigger places than the stream or the ditch, or even the duck-pond. Sometimes, though, in the pebbly part of the stream we meet a loach, a little brown speckled fish with a flat head and little suckers like the horns of a snail sticking out all round his mouth. We see him slip along in the water under the shadowy side of a stone. If he does not come out at the other end we know he is resting there, and then if we can make the stone move without muddying the water, we may see him flit from his hiding place, _zig-zag_ among the pebbles, looking for a new stone where he may shelter.