THE SHADS, THE EELS, AND THE LAMPREYS 303 
The seven gill-openings are ranged in a line behind the 
eye, and between the eyes is the single nasal aperture. 
The lampern is not known to descend to the sea. Its 
geographical range, however, is rather wider than that of the 
lamprey, for it is abundant in Russia and Japan, and extends 
as far north in America as Alaska. 
Couch says that, although lampreys may be found in the 
rivers during every month of the year, individuals have been 
taken sometimes in the open sea, and some ichthyologists 
have maintained that the metamorphosis from the larval to the 
adult form takes place in the sea. Little, however, seems to 
be known about the migration of these fish. They spawn in 
swift-flowing shallows in March and April, at which season 
their skin shines with a metallic lustre. 
Lamperns have never been so highly esteemed for the 
table as lampreys, albeit Buckland declared that “there is no 
finer dish,” and that when he was fishery inspector the people 
of Worcester used often to complain to him that they could 
not get lamperns to stew, because, although multitudes were 
caught in the Severn, they were all packed off wholesale to 
be used as bait for cod by the North Sea fishermen. In his 
Salmon-Fishery Report for 1878 he describes large quantities 
as being taken in the Trent—as many as 3,000 at Newark 
in one night—all of which were sent alive in wicker baskets to 
Great Grimsby and other eastern ports for bait. The fishing 
begins in August and continues till March, and it has been 
stated before a Royal Commission that a single fisherman has 
taken as many as 120,000 in a season, and that another 
fisherman received £400 for his catch in a like period. In 
the Thames, which used to furnish an enormous number of 
lamperns, the fishing was reported about 1872 to have dwindled 
to insignificance. 
The lampern has not been detected in preying upon the 
bodies of living fish after the manner of the lamprey, and 
probably contents itself with smaller animal organisms. 
