Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 October 1874 — A Model Papa. [ARTICLE]

A Model Papa.

Solomon sends us to the ant to learn, ami I don’t see why we should not take lessons from other little creatures in the world. - There’s a modest little fellow in the sea now who sets a most beautiful example of paternal affection and care, yet 1 never heard that he was set up as a model. To be sure he’s never more than four inches high,- but that is sixteen times as high as an ant, and virtue doesn’t depend on size either. The name of this interesting creature —the scientific name, I mean—is Hippocampus, but he is better known out of the books by the name of Sea Horse; aad doubtless most of you have seendriedrup specimens of the family in museums or in private collections of sea wonders. His wife —well, we won’t say much about his wife, for she isn’t a model by any means. In fact, she shirks all the time-honored duties belonging to a mother, liands the oyer to tluir father, and swims "off to have a good lime in the world. Papa Hippo seems not at all troubled or cast down by the unnatural behavior of the mother." To tell the truth, he prefers to attend to the babies, and is very nicely adapted to the work. Indeed, 1 don’t suppose he would allow the mother to interfere in his nursery arrangements if she wished. What do you suppose he does with all the eggs he has charge of? He has no nest, nor house of uny kind,. and there are a thousand or two of them, for fishes, you know, never do these things by halves. Well, he has no trouble, for nature has provided him with a pocket, thickly lined with fat, and into that convenient nursery he receives the family, and there they stay —nourished, as some naturalists think, by his fat—till they are big enough to look out for themselves. There!—isn't that an example for the world? And that is not all. Ordinary parents of the fish family eat the eggs and little ones not only of their neighbors but of their own family, while this admirable little papa of four inches high never was known, however hungry, toeven so much as taste one of his ow<\ children. That is a very rare virtue I can assure you—in fish life. AVhen this self-denying father thinks the little ones are big enough to take care of themselves, he starts them in life by bending his tail around like a hook, pressing it against the bottom of the pocket, and just coolly shoving them out to take their chances in a cold, wet world. This very unusual care for the little ones is not the only strange thing about the Sell Horse. His looks are as strange as his manners. He has the droll fashion, as somebody says, of living inside, instead of outside, of his bones. So he looks as though dressed in a suit of mail. His bones are not gfibstly-looking white things, like the bones of those who carry .them inside—they are of a soft gray color, ornamented with dainty carving. He receives his name from the shape of his head, which is comically like that of a horse, and is always carried partly erect in the water? He has a fin on his hack, which Ipoks like a beautiful fan tipped with yellow, and is of course a graceful ornament. His eyes are the color of gold, with an edge of blue, and are not slavish twins, as most eyes are, looking the same way. On the contrary, they are entirely independent of each other, so that he can look twh wavs at once, q The favorite attitude of this little oddity is holding on to a weed with his tail, from which position he can dart on his food as lie gets sight of it—either worm, fish egg, or some such delicacy. He has j side fins, by means of;which he can swim, I always standing up, as you may say, in ' the water. But he is not a great swimmer; he prefers to rest "holding on to a weed, as Esaid. Perhaps his tail is the most curious thing about him. It is four-sided, like a ; square file, and is covered with scales, i like the rest of his body. • It is long and I prehensile like the tails of some monkeys;; and to hold on to something seems tu be

I tfie delight of his life. If two of them j meet in the wqter they are sure to grab I each other by the tail. Even tiny atoms of Sea Horses (sea jColts you might call them), with tails no bigger than a bit of thread, will seize each other and hold on ; for dear life, never giving up till tired out. Little was known about the Sea Horse till a niituralist-t-Rev. Samuel Lockwood —kept several in an aquarium, and by ; closely watching them found out their 1 wonderful ways. J'ishes generally have little' trouble with their babies;"they just pu) the eggs into some place that they fanev is safe, ; and leave them to their fate. But there’s another little fellow* Jiving in the water who is as fussy about his young family as any land creature in the world. It is the Stickleback, and he goes so far as to build a nest . —He not only takes care of the eggs, and fights every fish, big and little, that dares to come near, but he drives away the very mother of the babies, fighting her in the most disgracei ful way if she insists on taking an inter-. ’ est in the family. In fact, he is one of j the most fidgety, quarrelsome little wretches you "ever heard of, quite unlike the dignified Sea Horse. When the babies are big enough to get about, he rules them with a rod of iron, swims after them, and brings them j home in his - mouth—thousands of them there are,- too. There’s some excuse for all this care, ■ for Stickleback babies are very nice to eat,’ and every fish bigger than themselves is sure to be'' an enemy.— Olive in T!hri»tian.