RIVER LAMPREY 
like the Eel, which goes to its ancestral home, the sea, 
to perform that all-important operation. 
Mr. C. Tate Regan, M.A., gives a list of 23 species of 
fresh-water fishes that are peculiar to the British Isles. 
Of these no less than 15 of the 23 species belong to the 
Char kind, and Char, as Mr. Tate Regan says, “ are 
essentially fishes of mountain lakes, which are usually 
deep and cold; in our islands they are found in Scot- 
land, Ireland, the Lake District of England, and North 
Wales, in fact in all parts where there are suitable lakes.” 
For the purpose of this book it has been thought best 
to include those kinds of fishes with which the average 
individual is likely to come into contact, and as to which 
the general reader requires information, but we have 
stretched a point in including those familiar species 
which, like the Eel and Salmon already referred to, 
pass part of their time in fresh-water and part in salt. 
Thirty-two species await attention, and these may 
now be dealt with. 
River Lamprey.-—Lampetra fluviatilis (Fig. 29). ‘The 
name Lamprey is derived from an old Latin word Lam- 
preda which is corrupted from a more ancient word 
Lampetra, from lambere, to lick, and petra, a stone. 
It is also called Nine-Eyes and Stone-Eel, the former 
from its eye, nasal slit, and seven gill-openings, and the 
latter because of its habit of attaching itself to stones. 
This small eel-shaped fish, the possessor of a long 
tongue, with a rasp attached to it which enables it to rip 
other fishes to pieces so as to feed upon their flesh, is 
59 
