pumpkinstrokemarrow

Have now checked in my fish book, and I think he was about spot on in his description of larval sea lampreys (Petromyzon marinus), which do indeed live in the mud for some years before emerging to mature and spawn. Not to be confused with river lampreys (Lampetra fluvialitis). Book also claims that lampreys are of no angling value. Not sure whether this means that they are not to be caught with rod and line or that one doesn't. The Swedes still catch the things in nets and eat them, while we do not, although it seems that one or two of our kings died of eating the things back in the middle ages, at which time they were considered a delicacy, the dying possibly because the royal cooks did not know how to draw the toxins from the lampreys' skins. Bath in salt is the thing, it seems. This draws mucus from the skin, the toxins coming along too. The Boston Cooking School Cook Book, generally reliable, does not mention lampreys at all. Dorothy Hartley denies ever having cooked or eaten the things herself although she does provide two recipes. Must ask the Finn of our acquaintance whether they do.

On the other hand, even if we do not eat them, mature lampreys on their way up river to spawn are much eaten by larger seagulls, otters and mink. I don't suppose any of these charectars bother with the salt bath, so we presume that they have more robust digestive systems than we do.

I conclude this chapter with one last lamplet. It seems that the things are a major pest in the great lakes of North America. Linking the lakes to the sea with canals let the things in where they fed enthusiastically on the local fish. Rather wastefully, in that they bore into the thing, have a bit of a munch and then let go. The partially eaten fish then expires and the partially satisfied lamprey moves on to the next one.

Next stop, hunt the Le Stranges. Or the L'Estranges. The top family in Hunstanton for hundreds of years, who gave their name to various licensed premises, who achieved baronet status at the very least, but who appear to be missing from Burke. Perhaps they only now exist in the female side and have been swallowed up by some other mob. Perhaps the Burke people are very fierce about expunging extinct families in order to keep the volume of the thing down, considerable as it is at about 12 inches in three volumes (see above).

Confused along the way by the strange attitude to sorting taken by the Burke people. Names like 'Le Plod' are sorted in the index as if they were spelt 'Leaplod'. The 'Legge-Bourke's appears between 'Legge, Barbara' and 'Legge, Charles'. Odd, but one can see what has happened. The only L'Estranges appear between Leseux and Leslie. Can't see what has happened here at all. And these L'Estranges only get a mention as the spogs of a male Brisbane L'Estrange who married into the Tyrwhit family. I wonder if the publishing software presumably used to produce Burke allows user interference with the sort order of odd names of this sort? Do you just have to go with what it does out of the box? Not really good enough if you care about names, as the Burke people presumably do.