298 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
others, in spite of the insignificance of its economical 
value. The attention paid to it is, therefore, due chiefly 
to its singular appearance and manner of life. 
The Lump Sucker occurs from very deep water 
up to the littoral region, where it prefers a rocky or 
stony bottom. The Royal Museum has received spe- 
cimens from a depth of between 100 and 150 fthms 
off Jaderen on the coast of Norway, and of between 
100 and 200 fthms, on the Jutland Reef in the North 
Sea. Though a bottom-fish and thus of sluggish tem- 
perament, it may sometimes be found swimming freely 
about in the open sea. This does not depend entirely 
on the circumstance that it attaches itself to floating ob- 
jects and drifts about in their company, for it also dis- 
plays considerable activity in the pursuit of its prey 
and on its migrations to the spawning-place. Ekstkom 
mentions its habit of attaching itself to the wooden 
floats or buoys ( skotJdabbar ) used to support the Herring- 
nets ( skotarne ). Couch" states, on good authority, that 
a Lump Sucker has been taken firmly attached to a 
Mackerel caught in a drift-net where the water was con- 
siderably deep. Day also gives two observations, made 
by Mr. Cornish 6 , of the capture of the Lump Sucker in 
Mackerel-nets drifting at the surface. On the voyage 
of the Ingegjerd and Gladan, the t wo ships of the Swe- 
dish expedition to Greenland in 1871, a young specimen 
33 mm. long was taken in a surface-net in the neigh- 
bourhood of Newfoundlands This species is most often 
taken, however, though only by accident, in nets sunk 
to the bottom or in trawls. 
The geographical range of the Lump Sucker extends 
from Greenland, the extreme north of Norway 16 , and 
the White Sea* southwards to the Bay of Biscay, on 
the east of the Atlantic, and to Chesapeake Bay, on 
the west. In Bohuslan it is far from rare, up to the 
Laminaria region (Malm). In the Baltic, according to 
Mela, it occurs up to the top of the Gulf of Bothnia, 
where it is said, however, to be rare. As Lilljeborg 
has already remarked, however, the Baltic form is dis- 
tinguished by several peculiarities; and we have above 
given all the instances of these that we have found in 
a Fish. Brit. Isl., vol. II, p. 185. 
6 Zoologist , 2nd ser., vol. VIII and IX, pp. 3532 and 49(31. 
c Lat. 47° 35' N., long. 52° 34' W. (26 Aug., 1871, Josua Li 
d Where, according to Collett, however, it is less common t 
e There is no record of its occurrence in Spitzbergen, where 
f The number of eggs and, probably, their size vary with the 
counted about 194,000 eggs. The entire roe weighed 730 gram. 
g In the ovaries, according to Fabricios, the colour of the eg: 
the specimens between about 140 and 170 mm. long, 
which the Royal Museum has acquired from Bravik and 
the island-belt of Stockholm. Most of these peculiarities 
indicate a persistency of the juvenile characters fully 
analogous to the relation between the Baltic Herring 
and the common form. One of these characters lies 
in the greater length of the pectoral fins, in which re- 
spect the Baltic form approaches the more arctic Cy~ 
clopterus spinosus. Others, however, as for instance 
the greater height of the second dorsal and the anal 
fins, contradict this impression and suggest a distinct 
direction of development, even if this be not far enough 
advanced to justify a distinction of species. According 
to Benecke the Lump Sucker attains a length of from 
20 to 30 cm. on the coast of Prussia. Off Morko Ek- 
strom never found specimens more than 15 cm. long. 
In the Baltic it probably does not attain so great a size 
as in the Atlantic. Even in Kiel Bay, however, ac- 
cording to Mobius and Heincke, it may be 40 cm. in 
length. The Danish authors, after Kroyer, state the 
maximum length of the female at 45 cm. and of the 
male at about 30 cm. Malm records the capture of a 
female 48 cm. long in the island-belt of Bohuslan. 
The Lump Sucker has sometimes been met with 
in fresh water, at least at the mouths of rivers: Day 
mentions an instance of this at King’s Lynn in Nor- 
folk, and Mobius and Heincke another at the mouth 
of the river Weser. 
The spawning-season of the Lump Sucker occurs 
at the beginning of spring, in the Baltic at the end of 
April or beginning of May, according to Ekstrom, in 
Bohuslan at the same period or, according to an ob- 
servation recorded by Malm, at the middle of May, 
and in Greenland, according to Fabricius, at the end 
of May or beginning of June. At this time or a little 
earlier the Lump Sucker migrates from deep water to 
the spawning-places, at a depth of some fathoms and 
where the bottom is overgrown with seaweed, some- 
times close to low-water mark, where the bottom is 
almost dry during spring. Here the female lays her 
numerous 7 , red' 7 eggs, and after her follows the male 
in in the south of Norway. 
le genus is represented by the other species, Cyclopterus spinosus. 
size of the parent fish. In a female weighing 5 kgrm. Bucklanb (1. c.) 
s varies considerably, being white, red, yellow, blue or green. 
