LUMPFISH. 
185 
variety of specimens, the operation is commenced on the 
shoulder and carried downward to the tail, which is regularly 
chopped off, and dismissed with the skin. On his attention 
being first called to this fact, he thought it possible that the 
cast-off skin might be accounted for on the assumption that 
the Seal effected his repast by excavating the flesh out of the 
skin; but all the fishermen decidedly affirm that he flays — or, 
as one of them quaintly expressed it, — he peels them like a 
potatoe. Sharks fed on them also, and in our western seas 
an example has been taken from the stomach of a Skate. 
With us this fish does not often take a bait, but crustacean 
animals fOmsciJ have been found in their stomachs; and, 
from the great length of the entrails, it may be judged that 
a portion of its subsistence at least is derived from sea vegetables, 
for it is a law of nature to which hitherto no exception is 
known, that creatures, whether of the land or sea, which feed 
on the productions of the vegetable kingdom, are supplied with 
entrails far more capacious than such as subsist on animal 
tissues alone. In a Lumpfish of the length of ten inches, the 
intestinal canal measured eleven feet, and the capacity was 
further increased by several blind appendages, termed caeca, 
which are organs of peculiar use, and, among their other 
functions, serve materially to increase the functional power 
of the intestines. It is probable also that the Lumpfish pursues 
some other prey, which is to be obtained only at a higher 
elevation in the water; for it is sometimes caught in bag-nets 
set for Salmon, and in drift-nets shot in the fishery for Mackarel. 
When thus exerting itself, it may be for rest only that it 
sometimes resorts to the same contrivance a& the Hemora, for 
I have been credibly informed of an instance in which a small 
example was found adhering to the skin of a Mackarel that 
had become entangled in a drift-net over a considerable depth 
of water. 
These fishes are most frequently taken in the spring, when 
they come to the nearer neighbourhood of the land for the 
purpose of depositing their spawn; and at this time it happens, 
whether by accident or otherwise, that many more females are 
caught than males. The roe is produced in very large quan 
titles, so that in the month of April I have found it occupying 
the larger portion of the cavity of the body; and the grains 
VOL. II. ^ 
