THE FISHES OF NEW JERSEY. 



49 



bicuspid. Two pairs of lunate pectinate lingual teeth, and ser- 

 rations of anterior pair confluent. Two dorsals, posterior larger. 

 Caudal small and rounded. Color when fresh deep or blackish- 

 olive above mottled with dirty brownish. Lower surface of 

 body brownish tinted with dull slaty and dull golden, especially 

 on belly and about gill-openings. Lips, or edge of disk, grayish. 

 Inside of disk fleshy, teeth all pale or very dilute yellowish. Iris 

 deep brownish, ring adjoining narrowly pale yellowish. From 

 eye back and in each interbranchial space a rather broad dusky 

 shade. Dorsal fin dusky-olive or blackish, margin of first rather 

 broadly pale or whitish. Margin of second dorsal indistinctly 

 pale. Length 22 inches. Near Sewell in a small stream above 

 the Delaware tide-water called Chestnut Branch,, tributary to 

 Mantua Creek, May 27th, 1904. 



Lamprey. Petroniyzoii niarinus Linnasus. 



According to the fishermen of the Great Egg Harbor River 

 it is occasionally taken in tide-water. In the Delaware it is 

 abundant mostly during the spring run of shad, and I have seen 

 examples which have burrowed nearly through adult shad. In 

 small creeks I have only found young examples though, as in 

 the case of the one described, the large ones do occur. Possibly 

 the brook lamprey occurs within the limits of the state ^though 

 as yet I have no material. By the Delaware River fishermen 

 the flesh of the lamprey is considered poisonous and therefore 

 not to be eaten. A large example was found near Beverly during 

 April of 1905, on the river beach, where it had rotted. They 

 were said to have been frequently taken in this region and found 

 mostly attached to the gills of the shad. Several large ones were 



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