332 SEASIDE DIVINITY. 



surrounded by a flexible lip, and armed with a 

 very singular tooth. The lamprey feeds, like the 

 eel, on any animal matter it finds ; but it occa- 

 sionally attacks other fishes fastening upon them 

 with its sucker-shaped mouth, and cutting into 

 their flesh with its tooth-like processes evidently 

 adapted to the purpose. This is not, however, 

 the only use to which its sucker is applied. The 

 fish is imperfectly adapted for swimming, having 

 neither air-bladder nor pectoral or ventral fins; 

 by means of the sucker, therefore, it can in no 

 small degree remedy the defects of its natatory 

 powers, by attaching itself to stones, and thus not 

 only obtaining rest, but perfect security against 

 the strength of the current. Another and very 

 distinct use of the sucker remains to be mentioned. 

 The lamprey, prior to depositing its spawn in the 

 rivers, finds its necessary to prepare a place for 

 its reception, and this it does by removing the 

 small stones from the spot in which the roe is to 

 be laid. In the rivers they frequent the male 

 and female lamprey may often be observed from 

 a bridge, busily occupied in this, to them, im- 

 portant process. To those who are not aware 

 that substances immersed in water are much 

 lighter than in air, it is quite marvellous what 

 large stones the lampreys contrive to carry from 

 the place which in their parental instinct they 

 are preparing for their progeny. The structure 

 of the lamprey's mouth is precisely analogous to 

 that of the little apparatus called a leather sucker 

 used by boys at school, or to the mouth of an 



