282 



HISTORY OF FISHES. 



arise from the animal's exhausting the air 

 within its body by the hole over the nose, 

 while the mouth is closely fixed to the object, 

 and permits no air to enter. It would be easy 

 to determine the weight this animal is thus 

 able to sustain ; which will be equal to the 

 weight of a column of air of equal diameter 

 with the fish's mouth. 



From some peculiarity of formation, this 

 animal swims generally with its body as near 

 as possible to the surface ; and it might easily 

 be drowned by being kept by force for any 

 time under water. Muralto has given us the 

 anatomy of this animal ; but, in a very minute 

 description, makes no mention of lungs. Yet 

 I am very apt to suspect, that two red glands 

 tissued with nerves, which he describes as 

 lying towards the back of the head, are no 

 other than the lungs of this animal. The ab- 

 solute necessity it is under of breathing in 



October to March, during which time it is permitted to 

 be caught, according to the rules adopted for the conser- 

 vation of the fishery. 



Formerly the lampern was considered a fish of con- 

 siderable importance. It was taken in great quantities 

 in the Thames from Battersea Reach to Taplow Mills, 

 and was sold to the Dutch as bait for the turbot, cod, 

 and other fisheries. Four hundred thousand have been 

 sold in one season for this purpose, at the rate of forty 

 shillings per thousand. From five pounds to eight pounds 

 the thousand have been given; but a comparative scar- 

 city of late years, and consequent increase in price, has 

 obliged the line fishermen to adopt other substances for 

 bait. Formerly the Thames alone supplied from one 

 million to twelve hundred thousand lamperns annually. 

 They are very tenacious of life, and the Dutch fishermen 

 managed to keep them alive at sea for many weeks. 



If this species, which is very easily obtained, be ex- 

 amined in the months of March or April, the distinc- 

 tion of the sexes will be immediately evident on opening 

 them. The female may generally be known externally 

 by the larger size of the abdomen, and the male by his 

 lips being more tumid and the mouth larger than that 

 of the female. The season of spawning is May, and the 

 process has been described by several observers. This 

 sometimes takes place in pairs only, and at others by 

 many of both sexes occupying one general spawning bed. 



The food of this species, according to Bloch, is in- 

 sects, worms, small fish, and the flesh of dead fish. The 

 adult fish is usually from twelve to fifteen inches in 

 length. Yarrelfs British Fishes, Vol. II. 



The Myxine Glutinous Hag-fish, or Borer, a species 

 of lamprey, (see Plate XXII. fig. 2.) This little fish, 

 although seldom more than twelve or fourteen inches in 

 length, is well deserving of notice, on account of its 

 singular method of obtaining its food. The myxine is 

 found as far north as the shores of Scandinavia, and it is 

 also of frequent occurrence on the British coasts, more 

 particularly off Scarborough. It enters, says Pennant, 

 the mouths of other fish when on the hooks attached to 

 the lines, which remain a tide under water, aud totally 

 devours the whole except the skin and bones. The 

 Scarborough fishermen often take it in the robbed fish 

 on drawing up their lines. On this account it is called, 

 on this part of the coast, the Hag or the Borer, because, 

 as others say, it first pierces a small aperture in the skin, 

 and afterwards buries its head in the body of its prey. 

 it is most usually found in the body of the cod, or 

 some other equally rapacious fish. 



the air, convinces me that it must have lungs, 

 though I do not know of any anatomist that 

 has described them. 



The adhesive quality in the lamprey may 

 be, in some measure, increased by that slimy 

 substance with which its body is all over 

 smeared ; a substance that serves at once to 

 keep it warm in its cold element, and also to 

 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 middle. 



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 



Its worm-like figure induced several systematic writers 

 to class it with the worms, and " it was not till after dis- 

 sections arid published descriptions, that its true relations 

 with the lampreys were acknowledged." 



"The myxine, (says Mr Yarrell,) is not uncommon at 

 Berwick, but it is only to be obtained at a particular 

 season of the year, in one or two localities, when, during 

 fine weather, at the end of spring, or the beginning of 

 summer, the fishermen lay their long lines, on a bank 

 with a soft mud bottom, near the coast, when fishing for 

 cod or haddock. It is considered by some, that the 

 myxine, which is without eyes, obtains access to the in- 

 terior of the body of the fish by passing in at the anal 

 aperture ; others endeavour to account for its being found 

 in the belly of a voracious fish, by supposing it had been 

 swallowed ; while many experienced fishermen still re- 

 peat their belief, that the myxine enters the mouth of 

 the cod-fish while it is hanging on the line. It is con- 

 jectured that the myxine does not fasten upon any fish, 

 unless it be either dead or hanging on a hook; but how 

 a fish that is blind is able to find its way to a particular 

 aperture, is a matter not easily explained. The eight 

 barbules, or cirri, about the mouth of the myxine are, 

 there is no doubt, delicate organs of touch, by which it 

 obtains cognizance of the nature and quality of the sub- 

 stances with which they are in contact, and its single- 

 hooked tooth upon the palate enables it to retain its hold 

 till the double rows of teeth, or the tongue, are brought 

 into action, to aid the desire to obtain food." 



Along the whole length of the under surface of the 

 body, from head to tail, there are two rows of mucous 

 pores, from which a large quantity of a gelatinous secre- 

 tion is expressed occasionally, at the will of the animal, 

 and by which, in reference either to its quality or quan- 

 tity, or both, this fish is said to escape its enemies. So 

 copious and so thick in its consistence is this jelly-like se- 

 cretion, that some of the older naturalists believed this 

 fish had the power of converting water into glue, and it 

 obtained in consequence the name of the Glutinous Hag. 



The body is long, and cylindrical throughout nearly 

 its whole length, tapering and compressed near the tail ; 

 in colour the myxine is dark-brown along the back, 

 lighter chesnut-brown along the sides, and yellowish- 

 white underneath. 



The bones of the back in the lamprey are of a soft 

 consistence, and indistinctly divided into rounded por- 

 tions. In the myxine, in place of a series of bones com- 

 posing the vertebral column, there is merely a soft and 

 flexible cartilaginous tube. 



