360 CYCLOSTOMATA. 



highest part. In March and Api*il the difference of the sexes was readily apparent, 

 the females were the more distended, while the lips of the males were the more 

 tnmid, and the month the larger. 



Names — Lampern, lampron and lamper-eel : nine-eyes, nine-holes, the eye and 

 nasal orifice appear to be here connted : seven-holes when only the gill-openings 

 are enumerated. Barling, cunning, and spanker-eel, Northumberland : say-nay, 

 Lancashire. Lleprog, Welsh. De Prix, Dntch. La Lamproie Fluviatile, French.. 



Habits. — Yarrell observed that they are taken every month in the year in 

 the Thames, and doubted its being anadromous. Higgins (Zool. 1861, p. 7318) 

 records its capture in the sea near Weston-super-Mare. Dr. Ball alludes to one 

 10 inches long, taken in the sea at Youghal. In Norfolk they have been observed 

 to mostly frequent gravelly shoals, but this has been during the breeding season. 

 Thompson received one which was taken adhering to a large trout. He continues : 

 " In a large, deep pond made for gold fish, at the falls, near Belfast, a portion of the 

 surface of which was covered with the leaves of the white water lily, I observed, 

 on a warm day in summer, an extraordinary appearance, caused, as I believed, by 

 this species. To the under surface of each floating leaf of the plant, several (in 

 some instances so many as a dozen) lampreys, about a foot in length, the adult size 

 of this species, attached themselves by the mouth, while the wriggling of their 

 dangling bodies had a strange effect. They were too far from the edge to be 

 captured bv any available means, but I have no doubt that they were all full- 

 grown individuals of this species." In an aquarium respiration at first was from 

 190 to 210 a minute ; on the third day, with the head, and branchial portion 

 entirely out of the water, it was reduced to 100 a minute. On aerating the water 

 with a garden syringe, each fish withdrew its head under water, and the number 

 of respirations was still further decreased to 80. Should water be foul they 

 raise their heads in an aquarium above the surface. On breathing a peculiar 

 noise is occasioned by bubbles being forced out of the gill-sacs. They will live 

 several hours after having been removed from the water. They will hold on by 

 their sucking mouths, feeling very similar to leeches. They consume worms, 

 insects, and the flesh of dead fishes, and affix themselves to living fish, among 

 which they are accused of doing much injury. 



Modes of capture. — Mostly in cruives or weels ; while they are kept in the river 

 at Tewkesbury in large wicker baskets. 



Baits. — Dame Juliana Berners observes, upon recommending a worm or 

 minnow for trout, continues : "In Aprill take the same baytes ; and also Juneba, 

 other wyse vii-eyes." 



Fisheries. — Very few ascend above the navigation weirs on the Thames and 

 Severn, while they deteriorate in value the higher they go. Formerly they 

 reached Montgomeryshire, and are said to have been taken in the Verniew (Field, 

 Jan. 28, 1882). In the Thames they were formerly captured in qiiantities from 

 Battersea Reach to Taplow mills, and Yarrell observes that this river formerly 

 supplied from 1,000,000 to 1,200,000 annually. A Parliamentary Committee 

 ascertained that formerly one person, during a single season in the Thames, took 

 as many as 130,000 fish. Now they have decreased, from being detained and 

 captured at the Tedding'ton weir, in a sort of bason, and so are unable to reach their 

 breeding-grounds as of old. But as they decrease in numbers they augment in 

 price. The Dutch used to pay from £3 to £5 a thousand for the cod and turbot 

 fishing, and have expended as much in one year at the Thames as £4000 on these 

 fish. At the end of March, 1867, in the Thames below Surley Hall, five or six 

 lampreys were found in eel-pots which had been in the water all the winter. 

 Fishermen had not seen any for the ten previous years in the Thames at this spot 

 (A. Clark-Kennedy, Zool. 1867, p. 836). In 1882, up to the middle of January, 

 120,000 fish were stated to have been captured, and they were still coming in 

 (Field, Jan. 21st, 1882). 



Uses. — Irrespective of food, an excellent bait for cod and turbot, for which 

 purpose vast quantities used to be taken in the Thames. Large quantities are 

 taken in the Trent from August until March, and sent alive to Great Grimsby 

 for bait. They are conveyed in wicker baskets, but a man goes with them 



