THE LAMPREY. 229 



The female's attention to her brood. 



of considerable magnitude, their power of suc- 

 tion is particularly serviceable and successively 

 exerted in removing and throwing it out. Like 

 other flat fish, the lampreys are produced from 

 eggs, but are not, like most others, left to chance 

 for their maturation, for the female remains near 

 the place where they are excluded. One single 

 brood is the extent of the female's fertility ; and 

 she, according to llondolelius, may be frequently 

 seen playing about them, and after some time 

 she conducts them in triumph back to the ocean , 

 at least such as have sufficient strength for that 

 purpose; the remainder continue in the fresh 

 water until they die, or are caught ; but their 

 flavor never equals that of such of them as have 

 undergone a sea voyage. Those lampreys which 

 are caught after they have cast their spawn, are 

 found to be flabby, and of little value, and par- 

 ticularly so at the approach of hot weather. In 

 many parts of Ireland the people will not venture 

 to touch them. Those caught in the English 

 Severn are considered as the most delicate of all 

 other fish whatever; and it has been an old cus- 

 tom for the city of Gloucester to present the king 

 annually with a lamprey pie; and as the gift is 

 made at Christmas, the difficulty of procuring a 

 sufficient quantity is so very great, that the cor- 

 poration have sometimes been obliged to pur- 

 chase them at a guinea a piece. 



This fish was in high demand among our fore- 

 fathers: so late as the reign of Henry V. we find 



