CARTILAGINOUS FISHES. 



639 



keep its skin soft and pliant. This mucus is 

 separated by two long lymphatic canals, that 

 extend on each side from the head to the tail, 

 and that furnish it in great abundance. As 

 to its intestines, it seems to have but one great 

 bowel running from the mouth to the vent, 

 narrow at both ends, and wide in the mid- 

 dle. 



So simple a conformation seems to imply 

 an equal simplicity of appetite. In fact, the 

 lamprey's food is either slime and water, or 

 such small water-insects as are scarcely per- 

 ceivable. Perhaps its appetite may be more 

 active at sea, of which it is properly a native ; 

 but when it comes up into our rivers, it is 

 hardly perceived to devour any thing. 



Its usual time of leaving the sea, which it is 

 annually seen to do in order to spawn, is 

 about the beginning of spring ; and after a 

 stay of a few months it returns again to the 

 sea. Their preparation for spawning is pecu- 

 liar ; their manner is to make holes in the 

 gravelly bottom of rivers ; arid on this occa- 

 sion their sucking power is particularly ser- 

 viceable ; for if they meet with a stone of a 

 considerable size, they will remove it, and 

 throw it out. Their young are produced 

 from eggs in the manner of flat fish ; the fe- 

 male remains near the place where they are 

 excluded, and continues with them till they 

 come forth. She is sometimes seen with her 

 whole family playing about her ; and after 

 some time she conducts them in triumph back 

 to the ocean. 



But some have not sufficient strength to re- 

 turn ; and these continue in the fresh water 

 till they die. Indeed the life of this fish, ac- 

 cording to Rondeletius, who has given its his- 

 tory, is but of very short continuance ; and a 

 single brood is the extent of the female's fer- 

 tility. As soon as she has returned after cast- 

 ing her eggs, she seems exhausted and flabby. 



She becomes old before her time ; and two 

 years is generally the limit of her existence. 



However this may be, they are very indiffer- 

 ent eating after they have cast their eggs, and 

 particularly at. the approach of hot weather. 

 The best season for them is the months of 

 March, April, and May ; and they are usually 

 taken in nets with salmon, and sometimes in 

 baskets at the bottom of the river. It has been 

 an old custom, for the city of Gloucester 

 annually to present the king with a lamprey- 

 pie ; and as the gift is made at Christmas, it 

 is not without groat difficulty the corporation 

 can procure the proper quantity, though they 

 give a guinea a- piece for taking them. 



How much they were valued among the 

 ancients, or a fish bearing some resemblance 

 to them, appears from all the classics that 

 have praised good living, or ridiculed glut- 

 tony. One story we are told of this fish, with 

 which I will conclude its history. A senator 

 of Rome, whose name does not deserve being 

 transmitted to posterity, was famous for the* 

 delicacy of his lampreys. Tigelinus, Manu- 

 cius, and all the celebrated epicures of Rome, 

 were loud in his praises : no man's fish had 

 such a flavour, was so nicely fed, or so exactly 

 pickled. Augustus, hearing so much of this 

 man's entertainments, desired to be his guest; 

 and soon found that fame had been just to his 

 merits ; the man had indeed very fine lam- 

 preys, and of an exquisite flavour. The 

 emperor was desirous of knowing the method 

 by hich he fed his fish to so fine a relish ; 

 and the glutton, making no secret of his art, 

 informed him that his way was to throw into 

 his ponds such of his slaves as had at any 

 time displeased him. Augustus, we are told, 

 was not much pleased with his receipt, and 

 instantly ordered all his ponds to be filled up. 

 The story would have ended better, if he had 

 ordered the owner to be flung in also. 



