A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE CYCLOSTOMES zo. Sea Lamprey or Stone Sucker. Petromyzon marinut, Linn. These remarkable fish, resembling eels, with circular suctorial mouths by which they cling to large stones when making in strong streams furrows or redds in the gravel for spawning, are still numerous in the Wye, and are taken on Breinton and Belmont streams just above Hereford. The late Dr. Symonds used to take them with a walking stick and a salmon hook spliced on to the end. In a clear stream they are readily seen making redds. 2 1 . River Lamprey or Lampern. Petromyzon fluvi- atilis, Linn. These are found in the Wye and Lugg, and in all their tributary streams, brooks, and rills. Yarrell, Houghton, and Jardine all mention the metamorphosis these species undergo in the course of three or four years, and their life history is not yet fully ascertained.' The writer accidentally found the fry of this car- tilaginous creature on I May in the mud of the Wye near Hereford Bridge ; hundreds of them in a small space from 2 in. to i^ in. long. These small fry, found in the mud probably a year after spawning, in the adjoining streams, are locally called ' Pride ' and are believed to be the fry of river lamprey or lampern. They form food for chub, perch, roach, and other coarse fish. s Yarrell, Hisu of Brit, Fishes, ii, 454 ; Jardine, Naturaliit^s Library, 'Ichthyology,' xxxiii, 338, and the admirable pictures and accounts of them in Houghton, Brit, Freshioater Fishes, 126
