366 



CYCLOPTERID^. 



It is more plentiful northward than on our southern coast, 

 and beyond this country has a most extensive range. Pen- 

 nant includes it in his Arctic Zoology. It is caught on the 

 coast of Greenland, where it is eaten ; and the Lump Sucker 

 of the North American shores is apparently identical with our 

 own. Professors Nilsson and Reinhardt include it among 

 the fishes of Scandinavia ; and Mr. Low considers it common 

 in the Orkneys. Dr. Neill says that in the spring months 

 it is caught on the sands of Portobello, and sent for sale to 

 the Edinburgh market, where it is purchased for table, and the 

 male fish considered superior to the female. " If," says Dr. 

 Richardson, " the authority of Sir Walter Scott is to pass cur- 

 rent in gastronomy, the Lump, or Cock-paidle, as it is named 

 in Scotland, is a fish of good quality, for he makes Mr. Oldbuck 

 give the same price for one that he does for the Bannock- 

 fluke, or Turbot. The epithet of Cock-paidle seems to have 

 originated in the appearance of the elevated dorsal ridge, 

 which is enveloped, like the rest of the fish, in a thick, 

 tuberculated skin, with some resemblance to the comb of a 

 domestic cock." Along our eastern and southern coasts it is 

 also taken more exclusively during spring, when it approaches 

 the shore for the purpose of depositing its spaAvn, which hap- 

 pens in April or the beginning of May. This species has 

 also been taken in various parts of Ireland. 



Some of our fishermen consider that we have on our coast 

 two species of Lump-fish, which they distinguish by the 

 names of Red-Lump and Blue-Lump, considering the first 

 only as eatable ; but the difference in colour, and also in the 

 quality of the flesh, is only the effect of season ; the fine ex- 

 ternal colour, as well as the firmness of the flesh, being lost 

 to the fish for a time by the exhausting process of spawning ; 

 it is then by them considered as the worthless Blue-Lump. 

 The ova forming the hard roe are of large size, and of a fine 

 reddish-orange colour. 



