THE SEA LAMPREY. §>% 
culty *. One that weighed but three pounds, has bees 
known to adhere fo firmly to a ftone of twelve pounds, 
that it remained fufpended at its mouth. This amazing 
power of fuction muft arife from the animal’s exhaufting 
the air within its body by the hole over the nofe ; while 
the mouth is clofely fixed to the obje£t, and permits no 
air to enter f. The weight which the lamprey is by this 
*neans able to fuftain, will be equal to that of a column 
°f air of the fame circumference with the animal’s 
mouth. 
The lamprey fometimes grows fo large, as to weigh 
four or five pounds ; its colour is dufky, irregularly 
marked with dirty yellow. In the mouth are placed 
twenty row's of fmall teeth, difpofed in circular orders, 
a ad placed far back near the throat, four, five, and fix, in 
£ ach row f. The branchim are fituated within the feven 
apertures, that are found on each fide of the neek. 
Though in fliape this animal refembles an eel, yet it is 
°f a thicker and more elumfy form. 
The fea lamprey, we fliould imagine from its name. 
Was only produced in the fait water ; it is found, how- 
ever, very frequently at the opening of large rivers, where 
they join the ocean. At certain feafons it is found in 
many of the Briti/h rivers, and ali'o in the Irijh. They 
are fea fifli j but, like falmon, quit the fait waters, and 
mount the rivers about the end of winter, and after re- 
maining there for a few months, return again to the 
ocean §. 
A.s our manners are probably flill far ihort of that 
fenfuality and extravagance which diftinguiihed the an- 
cient 
Pennantls Biitiflr Zoology, f Goldfmith’s Nat. Hilt, vol, & p. »y® 
t Willough. Ichthyol. p. 106. 
5 Brit. Zuol. ubifupra. Vide ctia:n Willough. 
