390 
SEA LAMPREY. 
exertion by the victim cannot deliver it. The most active 
fishes appear most liable to this infliction, and on none have 
I found it more frequent than on the Macharel, although the 
Gurnard, Coalfish (Banning Pollack,) Cod, and Haddock are 
also the subjects of the attack. It is deserving of notice, 
however, that in the numerous instances in which Lampreys 
have been found adhering to their victims, and eating into 
their substance, the depredators have been of small size, even 
of six inches in length, with a different appearance as regards 
colour in comparison with the full-grown fish; which latter 
has only a few times been taken at sea fixed to a boat 
within our knowledge. It might be supposed that death 
would be the inevitable fate of fishes which had suffered from 
the teeth of these devouring Lampreys;- but I have examined 
some that have borne the mark of having been thus fed on, 
but which have survived to have the wound healed, although 
not without its leaving an enduring mark. 
It is in the spring, and with us about April and May, that 
the Lamprey is ready to deposit its spawn; and for this purpose 
it seeks the fresh water of the deepest of our rivers. From 
the sea it has been brought with the roe enlarged on the 
11th. of April, and also in the middle of May; but in Holland, 
Iluysch says it is so early as February, and Duhamel says they 
are caught in nets of very fine twine in the River Loire, that 
runs by Nantes, in January; the fishery continuing until ^lay; 
while Sir William Jardine assigns it to June for Scotland, and 
thenceforward so late as to the end of August. It is at this 
its first entry into the rivers that the fishery is entered upon; 
and among English rivers the Severn has long been celebrated 
for it, and for the excellence of the Lampreys taken in it. 
Indeed it is not known that this fish is much sought after in any 
other of our rivers; aird even there so fluctuating is the taste 
of epicurism, that within a few years the sale of it has much 
declined. They are fished for mostly in the night, and from 
thirty to forty arc regarded as a successful adventure, at the 
price of a shilling to eighteen pence for each fish. Duhamel 
says that in France, with the nets employed, it is not by the 
mesh, but by being enrolled in the net that these fish are 
caught; and those which are taken in this manner are thought 
to be ill better condition than such as are entrapped in baskets 
