FISHES. 247 



species, came floating clown the Lagan, and were taken in great 

 abundance about the quays and wharfs of Belfast. The tem- 

 perature for three days, as observed by Mr. Thompson, was 

 then 27-J- , which was ten degrees higher than during three 

 successive days in the preceding month, when none were known 

 to have suffered from cold; but at the time the Eels were 

 killed a strong easterly wind dried up the moisture of the 

 banks, and probably occasioned their death by the extreme cold 

 arising from evaporation.* The Conger Eels near Cork seem to 

 have suffered from a similar cause at the same time.f 



Passing by the Remora (Fig. 192), the representative of 

 another family (Echeneidce), and whose singular sucking-disc, 

 placed on the crown of the head, has been already referred to 

 (p. 237), we come to a family (Cyclopteridce) in which the 

 ventral fins are not wanting, as in the Eels, but are united 

 beneath the body and form a concave disc, by which the fish 

 can with ease adhere to stones or other bodies. Of this group 

 the Lump-sucker (Cydopterus lumpus, Fig. 200) is the best 



Fig. 200. LUMP-SUCKER. 



known species, as his uncouth shape, red eyes, and body in 

 which bright tints of blue, purple, and orange, struggle for 

 precedence, arrest the attention of the most incurious. We 

 have taken in rock pools the young fish when less than an 

 inch in length, and by changing the sea-water regularly, have 

 kept them alive for several days, and have thus had oppor- 

 tunities of observing the rapidity with which they could adhere 



* Annals of Natural History, 1841, vol. vii. p. 75. 

 f F. M. Jennings, Idem, p. 237. 



