OUR COLOURED PLATE. 
(The following is extracted from the advance proofs of Mr. F. G. Aflalo’s yolume on Salt Water Fishes in the 
“Woburn Library of Natural History,” from which book the frontispiece is also reproduced by permission 
of the publishers. ] 
HE Lumpsucker (Oyclopterus lumpus) is perhaps the most hideous and repulsive 
fish in our seas. The coarse head and thick-set body are enveloped in a loose, 
slimy skin covered with warty tubercles. There are numerous teeth in the jaws, but 
none on the tongue or vomer. The female is the larger, having been captured 
weighing over 15 lbs., and is generally blue in colour, the prevailing hue in the male 
being red. hey are known on the Scotch coasts as the cock and hen paidle. 
It is not to be expected, seeing that the greenness of its bones prejudices people 
against so excellent a food-fish as the gar-fish, that a fish with the appearance of 
the lumpsucker should be in great demand as human food. In England the fish is 
little eaten, if at all. Im some parts of Scotland it is eaten by the natives; in 
others, it is considered fit for the pigs only. 
Its natural enemies are, however, many and dangerous, for seals devour it in 
estuaries, sharks prey on it in deeper water, and crows, rooks, and gulls attack it 
when guarding the eggs above low-water mark. The eges, which are heavy and sink 
in the water, are deposited in early spring, and le in masses among the rocks. 
McIntosh points out an interesting case of protective colouring, due in part to 
reflection, for when such a mass of eggs is only partly covered under a rocky ledge, 
the eggs thus immersed are of a faint lilac hue, while those more exposed are 
straw-coloured. From the point of view of the species, it is to be regretted that the 
male lumpsucker has not a little less devotion and the female a little more judgment, 
for the eggs are frequently deposited on the foreshore in situations so exposed that 
not alone the eggs, but also their untiring guardians, are devoured by birds or rats. 
Many anecdotes have been related of the courage with which the male mounts guard 
over the eggs. It is related that one was once tound lying on its side in a hot 
June sun in water so shallow that one side of the body and gill-covers was exposed 
to the air. It has also been observed that when a storm has scattered masses of 
these eggs, and driven the sentinels from their posts, numbers of distracted males are 
to be seen hunting everywhere, in the succeeding calm, for their lost treasures. 
Day quotes someone who observed the young adhering to the male immediately 
after leaving the ege, and being carried off by him to the greater security of the 
deeper water, but later authorities have doubted this story. It is now, indeed, 
generally recognised that the larval lumpsucker keeps close to the shore for some 
time, seeking safety among the stones and weed-roots. The imperfect little lump- 
suckers are far more rapid and active than the adult, their tail-fin propellmg them 
effectually, and even ther heavy hindquarters, a hindrance to progress in later life, 
lending at that stage an impetus to their movements. Their colouring in these early 
days is somewhat remarkable, the head being light brown, with a pale blue band, 
the body yellow, and the base of the dorsal fins beimg marked by blue spots. The 
rough tubercles, so conspicuous in the adult, do not develop until the young measure 
about $-in., or three times the length at which they emerge from the egg. At that 
stage, too, the eye is proportionately much larger than in the full-grown fish, 
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