188 
XTJMPFISH. 
flesh the lines of the vertebra were seen carried upward along 
the border of the tail for two thirds of its length, thus in 
some degree imitating the permanent organization of that part 
in Sharks and Sturgeons, as also in several races of fishes in 
extinct and fossilized families, as well as, in a less degree, the 
Common Salmon. The rays of the caudal fin are seen to 
proceed downward from this line of vertebrae through the 
membrane of the tail. The sucking organ under the throat 
was simple. Colour a yellowish brown, with a bright silver 
line from near the front, at the lips, through the eyes, and 
backward opposite the first dorsal fin. A line of the same 
kind ran across to join the former from before each eye. A 
little before the caudal fin on the middle line of the body, 
above and below, was a pale spot, appearing like a mucous 
orifice; but there was no appearance of a tubercle, and the 
skin seemed to be furnisbed with punctations. Professor 
Nilsson has observed a process of development similar to this, 
and which he has described in his “Scandinavisk Fauna.” 
When grown to near an inch or perhaps more in length, I 
have found it still without a ridge on the back, or a tubercle 
on the skin; and the tail was even lancet-shaped, but the 
head had become more massy; and in assuming the finally 
characteristic form the alteration appears to proceed from before 
backward. It is at this time also, or often when the length 
does not exceed half an inch, that the tubercles begin to 
appear, which is first on the anterior portion of the body, 
along the line above the pectoral fin, and below it from the 
sucking organ, but particularly also along the ridge of the 
back to the first dorsal fin. This then becomes raised and 
thrust backward, until the fin itself has become swallowed up 
in the fat integument, and the whole fish assumes the form as 
we shall now proceed to describe it. 
A full-grown Lumpfish has measured twenty-one inches in 
length, and eleven inches and a half in depth; the head 
broad, ascending from the mouth in a slightly curved outline 
to what has been the first dorsal fin, and which continues to 
be such in the male, which is considerably less than the 
female. The body is thick and solid, becoming thin and 
ridged at the back, along which runs a row of elevated rough 
tubercles, as far as opposite the vent, and close behind this 
