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BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



Bank and from the south coast of Newfoundland. Jensen 9 described others from 

 the neighborhood of the Faroe Islands, and since then Huntsman has recorded them 

 from the mouth of the Bay of Fundy and Hjort 10 from Norway. The eggs are 

 demersal and stick fast in clusters to some fixed object — in Jensen's case to a Bryo- 

 zoan — both by their filaments and by slime threads. Newly hatched hags have 

 never been seen, but inasmuch as the smallest yet described (about 2J^ inches 

 long), probably not long out of the egg, already resembled the adult in external 

 appearance there is no reason to suppose that the hag passes through a larval 

 stage greatly different from the adult. The few egg finds thus far reported, 

 being from 50 to 150 fathoms, point to rather deep water for the spawning of the 

 hag. The Norwegian eggs mentioned by Hjort (taken in shrimp trawls) were on 

 ooze bottom, but whether the hag invariably seeks this type of ground for breeding 

 remains to be learned. I need only add that, to judge from Cunningham's experience 

 with hags in aquaria, the females cease to feed with the approach of sexual maturity, 

 as do so many other fishes. 



2. Sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus Linnaeus) 



Lampret; Spotted lamprey; Lamper; Eel-sucker; Great sea lamprey 





Fig. 3.— Sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) 

 Jordan and Evermann, 1S9&-1900, p. 10. 



Description. — Lampreys are very primitive vertebrates, eel-like in appearance, 

 with soft, cartilaginous skeleton. They lack paired fins but have well developed 

 dorsal and ventral finfolds. In the adult the jaws are so rudimentary that apparently 

 they are wanting; the mouth is a longitudinal slit when closed, but when open forms 

 an elliptical disk at the tip of the snout and is armed with many horny, hooked 

 teeth arranged in numerous (11 to 12) rows, the innermost the largest. There are 

 seven pairs of open gill shts and two dorsal fin folds, whereas the hag has but one 

 pore on each side and only one fin. The sea lamprey (the only member of its group 

 known from our salt waters) can hardly be mistaken for any other fish, its eel-like 

 appearance ooupled with the jawless mouth sufficing to place it at a glance. 



Color. — In color the sea lamprey varies with locality, and perhaps with age and 

 season also. It is usually described as mottled above — hence the vernacular name 

 "spotted lamprey" — and plain tinted below. While the ground color of the upper 



* Videnskabelige Meddelelser ira Dansk naturhistorisk Forening i Kj0benhaven, 1900, p. 1. 

 IC Fishing experiments in Norwegian Fjords, by Johan Hjort and Knut Dahl. Report on Norwegian Fishery and Marine 

 Investigations, Vol. I, 1900, No. 1, Chap. IV, p. 75. Kristiania. 



