SEA LAMPREY. 
389 
similar opinion has been expressed in England by a witness 
in an inquiry before a Parliamentary Commission on the Salmon 
Fisheries in the year 1861. It was then shewn that under 
particular circumstances Salmon as well as Lampreys tasted 
strongly of tar. The witness said, “We asked the fishermen 
about it, and they told us that there was a little ripple of 
tar coming down into the Severn, and that must have been 
the reason (with the Salmon.) We were rather angry with 
the fishermen, and then thought they had put these Salmon 
into a boat where tar had been emptied; hut they said no, 
the tar in the river must have been the reason. We had 
two Lampre^ys returned that tasted very badly of tar: we 
found out the reason of that. Lampreys have mouths like 
suckers, and live by suction; and they will suck tightly to 
anything. The boats had been newly tarred, and these 
Lampreys sucked on to the boat, and from that they were 
all tar. I am quite certain that the Lampreys did not get 
the tar out of the water, but out of the boat. These tarred 
fish were confined to one year.” It is not so certain that the 
vegetable tar attracts these fish as that coal tar drives them 
away; and, accordingly, it has been noticed that since the 
time when the sea-going boats have used the latter no Lampreys 
have laid hold upon them. 
But there is another use to which the mouth is applied, 
and concerning which no doubt can exist, but by which the 
use of the singular armature and situation of the teeth is to 
be explained. The whole of the interior arch of the mouth is 
studded with regular rows of teeth, each one of which on a 
broad base is furnished with one or two apparently reversed 
points; and the teeth which are the most distant and concealed 
are larger than the others, and more effectually crowded with 
these points. For simply biting, as in other fishes, they are 
useless; but when the breadth of the open mouth is brought 
into contact with the surface of a fish on which the Lamprey 
has laid hold, by producing a vacuum, these roughly-pointed 
teeth are brought forward in a manner to be able to act on 
it by a circular motion, and a limited space on the skin of 
the captive prey is thus rasped into a pulp and swallowed, 
so that a hole is made which may perhaps penetrate to the 
bones, and from the torture of which the utmost energy of 
