184 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [vol. 50 



Fulton recorded the results of the examination of "considerably over 

 three hundred specimens of Lumpsuckers." "The stomachs of a large 

 proportion of them were either empty or rilled with a watery fluid 

 of about the same specific gravity as ordinary sea water." One hun- 

 dred and forty-four of the fishes thus examined were caught "in the 

 nets of the salmon fishers," and had approached the shore to spawn. 

 The concentration for this purpose may partly at least account for 

 the emptiness of the stomachs. "The great majority of the stomachs 

 of female fishes examined" by Fulton "were either empty or contained 

 a thin fluid differing little, if at all, from sea water. The stomachs 

 containing food which could be most easily identified were usually 

 those of male fishes." The food was chiefly composed of small 

 crustaceans, especially isopods or amphipods, and ccelenterates, such 

 as Beroids and Pleurobrachia. 1 



In fact, crustaceans, medusans, worms, 2 and shell-less mollusks are 

 the main sources of supply, but the medusans were thought by Ljllje- 

 borg (1884) to have been ingested rather for the small hyperioid 

 crustaceans that lurk about them than for the jelly-fishes themselves. 

 Some incautious little fishes are also captured by it. Murie, indeed, 

 found on one occasion about a hundred "whitebait" (the young of 

 herrings and sprats) in the stomach of a single Lumpsucker. Other 

 observers have examined the stomachs of many individuals, espe- 

 cially females in the breeding season, without finding anything "save 

 a quantity of fluid," but, as Fulton has well remarked, "this is no 

 doubt owing to their being mostly caught during the breeding sea- 

 son, when food is usually not taken by fishes." An incident told of 

 by Fulton ( 1906) aptly illustrates the limitation of the fish's power 

 and its abstinence while guarding the eggs whose care it has assumed. 

 One day Fulton "dropped on the top of the egg-mass" a male was 

 guarding "a little common swimming crab, about 1^4 inches in 

 breadth, which, apprehending danger, clung tightly in one of the 

 snout-depressions on the surface of the eggs. It was amusing to 

 watch the Lumpsucker ineffectually trying to rout him from the hol- 

 low in which he had taken refuge, the blunt snout of the fish prevent- 

 ing a hold being got on the crab. He tried again and again to dis- 

 lodge or seize the crab. At last the crab turned partly on its side 

 and extended its widely opened chelae as if to defend itself, which 



1 A detailed account of Fulton's observations may be found in the 20th 

 Annual Report of the Fishery Board for Scotland, part 3, pp. 497-500. 



2 Prof. Mcintosh (3d An. Rep. F. B. Scot, p. 61) obtained "a large female" 

 which emitted "fully matured" ova whose "stomach was distended with fine 

 specimens of Nereis pelagica, L." 



