396 LAMPERN. 



at least was) found, has enabled the people living along the 

 river to furnish the numbers of which we receive accounts. 

 The Dutch have, or have had, a contract with men of 

 Tcddington for the regular supply of these fish, to be used 

 as bait, and they are delivered alive, in which condition they 

 are kept until wanted; and the price has varied from 3 to 5, 

 or even more, the thousand. We learn from the Report of a 

 Parliamentary Commission, that one hundred and twenty thou- 

 sand were caught by one person in the course of one winter. 

 In a single season one man received 400 for the numbers 

 he sold; and the whole expenditure for a year has amounted 

 to 4000. 



To supply such a demand this fish must be highly prolific, 

 and more so than any others of this family with which we are 

 acquainted; as also it must be safe from the depredations of 

 devourers; although there is evidence that they are victims to 

 the omnivorous appetite of rats. We learn, however, from the 

 "Fisherman's Magazine," vol. ii, that however prolific naturally, 

 from some cause, of which the increasing foulness of the Thames 

 is the most probable, the numbers of these fish have fallen oif 

 greatly within a few j^ears, with the prospect of the utter 

 extinction of the fishery, to the great loss of course of the 

 fishermen who depended on it for subsistence, as well as to 

 those who have used it as bait. 



It is probable that fishermen who have been engaged in 

 supplying the demand for these fish could communicate many 

 particulars of their habits yet unknown to naturalists; but 

 what is generally known is for the most part confined to the 

 iiicidents which attend the deposition of the spawn and the 

 occurrences accompanying the season of breeding. Mr. Yarrell 

 has remarked in the "Journal of the Proceedings of the 

 Zoological Society," that he had examined individuals of this 

 species every week from March to the middle of May, and that 

 to the 19th. of April more females than males were taken; but 

 after this period, the females being nearly ready to deposit 

 their roe, the males were most numerous in the proportion of 

 two to one. All the females taken about the 26th. of April 

 were in a state to deposit their roe; and the milt of the males, 

 now become fluid, passed in a stream from the sheath behind 

 the anal aperture on making slight pressure on the abdomen. 



