THE HAG. 261 



fishermen on some parts of the east coast. In the 

 white fishing, the lines are often left for a tide floating 

 in the sea ; when the fish are caught on the hooks and 

 struggling, the hag enters their mouths, and fastening 

 its sucker, soon drains all the juices, leaving only the 

 skin and the bones, which are called " robbed fish," by 

 the fishermen. 



The most singular circumstance about these fishes, 

 is the mode of their production. It had long been 

 noticed, that when the lampreys were in season, that 

 is, while ascending the rivers from the sea, in order to 

 spawn, all that were taken contained roes or eggs 

 were females, and that a male lamprey had never been 

 observed. The researches of Sir Everard Home have 

 very satisfactorily proved, that in all the three genera 

 that have been enumerated, the male and the female 

 are united in the same individual, and that each deposits 

 its eggs in a state fit for producing young, without 

 any other intervention, though there be a great deal 

 of obscurity about the time and mode of this singular 

 impregnation. 



But the peculiarities of structure and habit, even in 

 this single division of the inhabitants of the sea, are so 

 numerous, that even the bare enumeration of them 

 would extend to many volumes ; and after all, leave the 

 subject little more than merely begun. One, however, 

 possesses a property, which, though not peculiar to it, 

 is yet too singular for being passed over. That one is 



