LAMPERN. 455 



Formerly the Lampern was considered a fish of consider- 

 able 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 scarcity 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 an- 

 nually. They are very tenacious of life, and the Dutch fish- 

 ermen managed to keep them alive at sea for many weeks. 



If this species, which is very easily obtained, be examined 

 in the months of March or April, the distinction of the sexes 

 will be immediately evident on opening them. The female may 

 generally be known externally by the larger size of the abdo- 

 men, 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 insects, 

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



The adult fish is usually from twelve to fifteen inches in 

 length ; the body rather slender, cylindrical for two-thirds 

 of its length, then compressed to the end of the tail ; the 

 head rounded, with a single aperture on the crown, leading to 

 the tube between the cells, as in the other species : the eye 

 rather large ; the seven lateral openings ranged in a line 

 behind, but a little obliquely and below it, on each side : the 

 lip surrounding the mouth has a continuous row of small points 

 on its margin ; the mouth and teeth as represented near the 

 figure of the fish : the back furnished with two rather elongated 



