156 THE LUMPSUCKER 



should be sure to underrate the peculiar virtues of the 

 lumpsucker, a creature which nature has endowed with 

 a countenance charged with sullen ferocity, and a 

 demeanour suggesting only indolent gluttony. 



The lumpsucker (Cyclopterus lumpus) is a marine 

 fish not uncommon on the British coasts, well known 

 to Scottish fishermen as the ' cock paidle,' so thick and 

 stumpy in figure that a female eighteen inches long 

 weighs more than 10 Ib. The normal weight for a trout 

 of similar length is 2| Ib. Notwithstanding this unpre- 

 possessing exterior, fisher-folk have long credited this 

 creature with qualities much at variance with its 

 appearance. Fabricius described it long ago, in his 

 history of Greenland fishes, as a model of parental 

 devotion ; but scientific icthyologists have inclined to 

 incredulity in this matter. The latest witness was 

 Johan Persson, a Swedish fisherman near Gottenburg, 

 who averred that he had watched a pair of lump- 

 suckers three years in succession, spawning in the same 

 rock-cleft at a depth of three or four fathoms, and that 

 the male fish not only kept guard over the eggs till 

 they were hatched, driving off even such formidable 

 marauders as large crabs ; but that it ' blew on the 

 roe ' at intervals ; that is, spouted water from its mouth 

 upon the ova. 



Now there is a prevalent suspicion that fishermen's 

 tales will seldom stand the test of scientific investiga- 

 tion. It is, therefore, peculiarly gratifying to me, as 

 one of the angling fraternity, to point to the twenty- 

 fourth annual report of the Fishery Board for Scot- 

 land, Part iii., where ample vindication of Persson's 



