Certain fishes, belonging to several families, make nests; and some of these fishes take care of their young when hatched. Both sexes of the brightly-coloured _Crenilabrus massa_ and _melops_ work together in building their nests with sea-weed, shells, &c.[31] But the males of certain fishes do all the work, and afterwards take exclusive charge of the young. This is the case with the dull-coloured gobies,[32] in which the sexes are not known to differ in colour, and likewise with the sticklebacks (Gasterosteus), in which the males become brilliantly coloured during the spawning-season. The male of the smooth-tailed stickleback (_G. leiurus_) performs during a long time the duties of a nurse with exemplary care and vigilance, and is continually employed in gently leading back the young to the nest when they stray too far. He courageously drives away all enemies, including the females of his own species. It would indeed be no small relief to the male if the female, after depositing her eggs, were immediately devoured by some enemy, for he is forced incessantly to drive her from the nest.[33] The males of certain other fishes inhabiting South America and Ceylon, and belonging to two distinct orders, have the extraordinary habit of hatching the eggs laid by the females within their mouths or branchial cavities.[34] With the Amazonian species which follow this habit, the males, as I am informed by the kindness of Professor Agassiz, “not only are generally brighter than the females, but the difference is greater at the spawning-season than at any other time.” The species of Geophagus act in the same manner; and in this genus, a conspicuous protuberance becomes developed on the forehead of the males during the breeding-season. With the various species of Chromids, as Professor Agassiz likewise informs me, sexual differences in colour may be observed, “whether they lay their eggs in the water among aquatic plants, or deposit them in holes, leaving them to come out without further care, or build shallow nests in the river-mud, over which they sit, as our Promotis does. It ought also to be observed that these sitters are among the brightest species in their respective families; for instance, Hygrogonus is bright green, with large black ocelli, encircled with the most brilliant red.” Whether with all the species of Chromids it is the male alone which sits on the eggs is not known. It is, however, manifest that the fact of the eggs being protected or unprotected, has had little or no influence on the differences in colour between the sexes. It is further manifest, in all the cases in which the males take exclusive charge of the nests and young, that the destruction of the brighter-coloured males would be far more influential on the character of the race, than the destruction of the brighter-coloured females; for the death of the male during the period of incubation or nursing would entail the death of the young, so that these could not