FISH. 29 



A cross-bill (loxia curvirostra) was killed last year in this 

 neighbourhood. 



Our streams, which are small, and rise only at the end of the 

 village, yield nothing but the bull's head or miller's thumb 

 (gobius fluviatilis capitatus}* the trout (trutta fluviatilis) A the eel 

 (anguilla), the lampern (lampatra parva et fluviatilis) ,\ and the 

 stickle-back (pisciculus aculeatus). 



We are twenty miles from the sea, and almost as many from a 

 great river, and therefore see but little of sea-birds. As to wild 

 fowls, we have a few teams of ducks bred in the moors where the 

 snipes breed ; and multitudes of widgeons and teals in hard wea- 

 ther frequent our lakes in the forest. 



Having some acquaintance with a tame brown-owl, I find 

 that it casts up the fur of mice, and the feathers of birds in 



* Cottus gobio, the river bull-head, a small and very common brook and river fish throughout 

 England, and which is most abundant in small streamlets with gravelly or sandy bottoms, being 

 generally found among loose stones, beneath which they hide (the peculiar flattened form of the 

 head enabling them to thrust themselves under), and from which they issue with great rapidity 

 to seize the larvae of aquatic insects, &c., on which they feed. It is a very slimy fish, and has 

 rather an uncouth appearance, the eyes being placed close together on the top of the head, which 

 is very large and flat. There are also two marine species of Cottus, extremely common upon the 

 British shores, but which are not usually found together the lasher bullhead (C- bubalus) , and 

 the scorpion bullhead (C. scorpius) . A fourth (C. quadricornis) occurs as a straggler. Another 

 and very singular looking British fish, allied to these, is the pogge, or " lyrie" of the Scotch 

 (Aspidophorus europaus) All jthese are exquisitely figured and desciibed in Mr. Yarrell's beau- 

 tiful work on British fishes, which should be in the hands of every naturalist. ED. 



t Salmo fano. ED. 



t The common brook lamprey (Petramyzon fluviatilis) - There are three ascertained British spe- 

 cies of this genus, all of which ascend the rivers and brooks to spawn, and which are named (but 

 not very significantly) P. marinus, fluviatilis, and planeri. This form is about the last of fishes, the 

 lowest in the scale of vertebrate animals, having merely a rudimentary vertebral column. It is 

 curious to see them feed. " Fastening," as a writer in the Field Naturalist's Magazine observes, 

 * by means of their sucker-like mouth, to stones of considerable size, they contrive by strong 

 muscular exertion, accompanied by considerable dilatation of the seven small orifices on each 

 side of the head, to move them from their places, when, instantly letting go their hold, they 

 commence an investigation of the spot whence the stone was removed, feeding on any small insects 

 which had made their haunts beneath it." Their spawning beds are formed in a similar man- 

 ner. " They are not," says Sir W. Jardine, "furnished with any elongation of jaw, afforded to 

 most of our fresh-water fish, to form the receiving furrows in this important season, but the want 

 is supplied by their sucker-like mouth, by which they individually remove each stone. Their 

 power is immense ; stones of a very large size are transported, and a large furrow is soon formed. 

 The P. marinus remain in pairs, two at each spawning-place, and while there employed retain 

 themselves affixed to a large stone. The P. fluviatilis, and another small species which I have 

 not determined" (probably P. planeri), "are gregarious, acting .in concert, and forming, in 

 the same manner, a general spawning bed." It is hardly necessary to remark, in reference to 

 the size of the stones which the lampreys manage to remove with such apparent facility, that a 

 much less degree of muscular power suffices to lift these under water than would be required in 

 the lighter medium, air, in which we move. In many parts of England the different lampreys 

 are popularly termed " nine-eyes," from the above-mentioned seven small orifices on each side 

 of the head, through which, in place of gills, they breathe. The large species is in many parts 

 exclusively designated " lamprey," and the two smaller kinds are .commonly confounded under 

 the term " lampern." ED. 



