LUMP SUCKER. 



It is more plentiful northward than on our southern coast, 

 and beyond this country has a most extensive range. Pen- 

 nant includes it in his Arctic Zoology. It is caught on the 

 coast of Greenland, where it is eaten. Professors Nilsson and 

 Reinhardt include it among the fishes of Scandinavia; and Mr. 

 Low considers it common in the Orkneys. Dr. Neill says 

 that in the spring months it is caught on the sands of Porto- 

 bello, and sent for sale to the Edinburgh market, where it is 

 purchased for table, and the male fish considered superior to 

 the female. Along our eastern and southern coasts it is also 

 taken more exclusively during spring, when it approaches the 

 shore for the purpose of depositing its spawn, which happens 

 in April or the beginning of May. This species has also 

 been taken at Belfast ; and the Lump Sucker of the North 

 American shores is apparently identical with our own. 



Some of our fishermen consider that we have on our coast 

 two species of Lump-fish, which they distinguish by the 

 names of Red-Lump and Blue-Lump, considering the first 

 only as eatable ; but the difference in colour, and also in the 

 quality of the flesh, is only the effect of season ; the fine ex- 

 ternal colour, as well as the firmness of the flesh, being lost 

 to the fish for a time by the exhausting process of spawning ; 

 it is then by them considered as the worthless Blue-Lump. 

 The ova forming the hard roe are of large size, and of a fine 

 orange colour. The young are four inches and a half long, 

 and three inches in height, by the end of November. Shaw's 

 specimen, of six inches in length, to which he attached the 

 specific name of Pavonina, is only a young fish of our com- 

 mon species, which for want of sufficient age had not attained 

 its perfect colour. As the Lump-fish is retentive of life, its 

 power of adhesion is sometimes made the subject of experi- 

 ment. Pennant says, " That on placing a fish of this spe- 

 cies, just caught, into a pail of water, it fixed itself so firmly 



