Early Life | Alfred Russel Wallace ( 1823-1913)

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By Alexander Francis Lydon (1836-1917) (British fresh water fishes) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

”But the chief attraction of the river to us children was the opportunity it afforded us for catching small fish, especially lampreys. A short distance from our house, towards the little village of Llanbadock, the rocky bank came close to the road, and a stone quarry had been opened to obtain stone, both for building and road-mending purposes. Here, occasionally, the rock was blasted, and sometimes we had the fearful delight of watching the explosion from a safe distance and seeing a cloud of the smaller stones shoot up into the air. At some earlier period very large charges of powder must have been used, hurling great slabs of rock across the road into the river, where they lay, forming convenient piers and standing-places on its margin. Some of these slabs were eight or ten feet long and nearly as wide; and it was these that formed our favorite fishing-stations, where we sometimes found shoals of small lampreys, which could be scooped up in basins or old sauce pans, and were then fried for our dinner or supper, to our great enjoyment. I think what we caught must have been the young fish, as my recollection of them is that they were like little eels, and not more than six or eight inches long, whereas the full-grown lampreys are from a foot and a half to nearly three feet long. The lamprey was a favorite dish with our ancestors, and is still considered a luxury in some districts, while in others it is rejected as disagreeable, and the living fish is thought to be even poisonous. This is, no doubt, partly owing to its wriggling, snake-like motions, and its curious sucking mouth, by which it sticks on the hand and frightens people so much that they throw it away instantly. But the Rev. J. G. Wood, in his very interesting " Natural History," tells us that he has caught thousands of them with his bare hands and has often had six or seven at once sticking to his hand without causing the slightest pain or leaving the least mark. The quantity of these fish is so great in some rivers that they would supply a large amount of wholesome food were there not such a prejudice against them. Since this period of my early childhood I do not think I have ever eaten or even seen a lamprey. At this time, I must have been about four years old, as we left Usk when I was about five, or less. My brother John was four and a half years older, and I expect was the leader in most of our games and explorations. My two sisters were five and seven years older than John, so that they would have been about thirteen and fifteen, which would appear to me quite grown up; and this makes me think that my recollections must go back to the time when I was just over three, as I quite distinctly remember two, if not three, besides myself, standing on the flat stones and catching lampreys.”

Excerpted from
Wallace, Alfred Russel (1905). My Life. Chapman and Hall, London.

”Alfred Russel Wallace OM FRS (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, and biologist.” Bio in Wikipedia