THE LAMPREY. 



293 



Although popularly called Bony Pike, from the mailed exterior and the lengthened wide- 

 jawed form, which has some resemblance to that of a pike, this fish belongs to a totally 

 different order, and in most points of its construction is formed after a different fashion. The 

 general structure, indeed, of the Bony Pike is very remarkable, and affords another instance 

 of the difficulty with which the fish are classed. The body is elongated, and the jaws are 

 also lengthened and well furnished with teeth, looking very like an exaggerated pike's mouth, 

 or the head of the common gavial of the Ganges. In each jaw there is a single row of sharp 

 and conical teeth, and between them, and on the palate, are numerous other teeth, much 

 smaller in size. 



The scales of the Bony Pike are rhombic in form, very like the flat porcelain tiles with 

 which certain ancient chimney- pieces were wont to be decorated, and hardly inferior to those 

 tiles in the polished hardness of their exterior. They are very regularly arranged, being set 

 so as to form a series of oblique rows, extending from the back to the abdomen. As in 

 the sturgeons and sharks, the vertebral column runs along the upper edge of the tail fin. 

 This fish is found in the lakes of America, and sometimes attains a considerable size, being 



BOXY PIKE.— Ltpidosteus osseus. 



often captured measuring three or four feet in length, and is said sometimes to attain a length 

 of seven feet. Several species are said to inhabit the same waters ; but when the remarkable 

 diversity of form and color which often reigns among the fishes is considered, it is highly 

 probable that the supposed species may be nothing more than well-marked varieties. The 

 flesh of the Bony Pike is said to be good. 



Bony Pike, Gar Pikes (LejJ/dostei/s). Two species of this genus are common in the Great 

 Lakes and rivers of America. Their alliance with forms now extinct renders the species of 

 great interest. Very few are now existing. 



The well-knoAvn Lampkey and its kin are remarkable for the Avonderful resemblance which 

 their mouths bear to that of a leech. 



They are all long-bodied snake-like fish, and possess a singular apparatus of adhesion, 

 which acts on the same principle as the disc of the sucking-fish, or the ventral fins of the 

 goby, though it is set on a different part of the body. If all had their rights, indeed, the 

 title of sucking-fish ought more correctly to be applied to the Lamprey than to the creature 

 which is at present dignified by that appellation; as the one really applies its mouth to 

 any object to which it desires to adhere, and forms a vacuum by suction, whereas the 



