12 6 THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



Dee, a few miles from Chester ; it was about 1 seven feet 

 long. The fishermen brought it in on a truck, in great 

 triumph, and sold it in the market at 6d. a pound ; its 

 flesh is very good and wholesome, and is said to taste like 

 veal. These fishes possess very large swimming bladders, 

 which are cut into strips and dried, and the article so 

 manufactured is known to us as Isinglass. The roe, too, 

 is very valuable, for it is salted down, and comes into the 

 market as an article of food, much esteemed in Russia, 

 France, and Italy, called Caviare. This is made princi- 

 pally from the roes of Sturgeons living in the Caspian and 

 Black Seas. Astrakhan is the principal seat of its manu- 

 facture, and about 400,000 pounds weight of it are prepared 

 in a year. The roes are very large. We are told that 

 as many as 1,500,000 eggs have been found in a Sturgeon 

 which weighed 270 pounds ; and that in another weighing 

 2,800 pounds the spawn alone weighed 800 pounds. 



Lampreys are also members of the cartilaginous 

 group. In Fig. 87 a drawing of one is given, so that you 

 may compare it with the Eel (Fig. 88). The Eel is a 

 bony fish, and has therefore a skeleton, which the Lamprey 

 has not ; it has only a long tube of cartilage, without any 

 joints in it. It belongs to the round-mouthed family, 

 which name, you will see by the drawing, it quite deserves. 

 This mouth has, however, a ring of strong teeth ; its tongue 

 moves backward and forward like a piston, and so enables 

 it not only to suck up food, but to attach itself to rocks, 

 , stones, &c. There arc seven openings at the side of the 

 head, through which the water passes. There are Sca- 

 Lamprcys, River-Lampreys, and a smaller species, called 

 Lamperns. 



It is a common thing, in a neighbourhood where the 

 rivers arc somewhat shallow, to sec numbers of poor boys 

 without shoes or stockings, wading about in the water 

 with a tin can or jug in their one hand, whilst with the 



