390 SEA LAMPKEY. 



exertion by the victim cannot deliver it. The most active 

 fishes appear most liable to this infliction, and on none have 

 I found it more frequent than on the ]\Iackarel, although the 

 Gurnard, Coalfish (Rauning Pollack,) Cod, and Haddock are 

 also the subjects of the attack. It is deserving of notice, 

 however, that in the numerous instances in which Lampreys 

 have been found adhering to their victims, and eating into 

 their substance, the depredators have been of small size, even 

 of six inches in length, with a different appearance as regards 

 colour in comparison with the full-grown fish; which latter 

 has only a few times been taken at sea fixed to a boat 

 within our knowledge. It might be supposed that death 

 would be the inevitable fate of fishes which had suffered from 

 the teeth of these devouring Lampreys; but I have examined 

 some that have borne the mark of having been thus fed on, 

 but which have survived to have the wound healed, although 

 not without its leaving an enduring mark. 



It is in the spring, and with us about April and May, that 

 the Lamprey is ready to deposit its spawn; and for this purpose 

 it seeks the fresh water of the deepest of our rivers. From 

 the sea it has been brought with the roe enlarged on the 

 11th. of April, and also in the middle of May: but in Holland, 

 Ruysch says it is so early as February, and Duhamel says they 

 are caught in nets of very fine twine in the Eiver Loire, that 

 runs by Nantes, in January; the fishery continuing until May; 

 while Sir William Jardine assigns it to June for Scotland, and 

 thenceforward so late as to the end of August. It is at this 

 its first entry into the rivers that the fishery is entered upon; 

 and among English rivers the Severn has long been celebrated 

 for it, and for the excellence of the Lampreys taken in it. 

 Indeed it is not known that this fish is much sought after in any 

 other of our rivers; and even there so fluctuating is the taste 

 of epicurism, that within a few years the sale of it has much 

 declined. They are fished for mostly in the night, and from 

 thirty to forty are regarded as a successful adventure, at the 

 price of a shilling to eighteen pence for each fish. Duhamel 

 says that in France, with the nets employed, it is not by the 

 mesh, but by being enrolled in the net that these fish are 

 caught; and those which are taken in this manner are thought 

 to be in better condition than such as are entrapped in baskets 



