MALACOPTERYGII SUBBRACHIATI. 519 



is a very bad swimmer, it would have been exposed to perish 

 of hunger without this peculiarity, which enables it to wait 

 longer for its prey by preventing digestion from taking place 

 with so much rapidity. 



The lumpus, which is also called in French licone de mer, 

 or lonelier, and in English lump-sucker, remains habitually 

 at the bottom of the sea, concealed under the rocks, or at- 

 tached to their base, by means of its clypeiform fin ; and very 

 considerable force is required to pluck it thence, as has been 

 proved by the experiments of Hanov and Pennant. Its food 

 consists principally of marine worms and small fish ; but as it 

 is heavy, and possessed of but few means of defence, it easily 

 becomes the prey of seals, squali, and other voracious inha- 

 bitants of the water. Its flesh is mucous, soft, and far from 

 agreeable. It is eaten, however, in some northern countries, 

 in the seas of which this fish is more especially to be found. 

 In Ireland it is even salted, and dried for preservation during 

 the winter ; but, in general, the only purpose to which it is 

 applied is the making of baits to catch other fish. 



The lumpus is one of those fishes concerning which the 

 greatest number of marvellous stories have been related. 

 M. de Lacepede says, in an eloquent and frequently quoted 

 passage, " Let those whose delicate sensibility seeks with so 

 much interest, and finds with so much pleasure, the images of 

 touching affection presented by some few happy beings, in 

 the midst of the immense assemblage of the productions of 

 creation, on which nature has so unequally bestowed the 

 breath of life, and the capacity of sensation, listen for an in- 

 stant to what some naturalists have related concerning the 

 fish whose history we are now writing. Among the innu- 

 merable inhabitants of the ocean which yield but to the 

 wants of the moment, to a gross appetite, to a pleasure as 

 little shared as it is fugitive, which know neither mother, 

 companion, nor young, we are told that a favoured animal 



