262 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



fend it till the young come forth * : the protection which some of the cartilaginous 

 fishes are reported to afford to their young, by receiving them into their mouths, is 

 not less remarkable : in short, when we consider the instinct with which various 

 reptiles and insects are endowed for the preservation of their eggs, there does not 

 appear to be anything surprising in the fact, that some tribes of fish have been 

 formed with similar desires and powers. 



The food of the lump consists chiefly of soft molluscs, particularly small ptero- 

 podes and acalephce, as clio, medusa, and berue, which abound in the northern 

 seas. The Greenlanders eat its flesh, either cooked or dried, and its skin raw, 

 throwing away only the tubercles, being in this respect less nice than the seals 

 of the Pentland firth, which devour a great many lumps but reject the skins. If 

 the authority of Sir Walter Scott is to pass current in gastronomy, the lump, or 

 cock-paidle as it is named in Scotland, is a fish of good quality, for he makes Mr. 

 Oldbuck give the same price for one that he does for the bannock-fluke, or turbot. 

 The epithet of cock-paidle seems to have originated in the resemblance of the first 

 dorsal, which is enveloped, like the rest of the fish, in a thick, tuberculated skin, to 

 the comb of a domestic cock. Sibbald mentions another " gibbosus piscis," as 

 known in Scotland by the name of " hush-paidle," or " bagaty." Not having 

 access to an American specimen of the lump, I shall omit the description. 



Fins.— Br. 4; D. 0—11; P. 20 ; V. 6 ; A. 11; C. 12. Fabricius, 1. c. 



6; — 11; 17; 6; 11; 9f. Scottish specimen. 



[106.] 2. Cyclopterus minutus. (Pallas.) Diminutive lump. 



Cyclopterus minutus. Pall., Sjiic. Zoo/., vii., p. 14, pi. 3, figs. 7 — 9. 



Fabr., Faun Grccnl., p. 135. Ross, App; p. xlvi. 

 Nepeesardlooarksook. Gueenlanders. 



Captain J. C. Ross says " Pallas's description of this extraordinary and beau- 

 tiful little fish is most perfect. It is found in many parts of the Atlantic Ocean ; 

 Fabricius observed it in the southern parts of Greenland, and great numbers were 

 taken by us from among the extensive floating patches of sea-weed that are met 

 with off that coast ; but it has never been seen at any great distance to the north- 



* This is not the only analogy that these fishes present to the anabasidete. Like the latter they travel over land in quest 

 of water when the pools which they inhabit dry up, and, according to Indian information, they also possess the power of 

 carrying an internal supply of water, but we are not informed whether the reservoir be situated over the gills, as in the 

 anabasidea?, or elsewhere. 



