Volume 39, Plate VIII / Ichthyology (Fish)

Three-Bearded Rockling, or Sea Loach & Five-Bearded Rockling

Motella tricirrata & M. quinquecirrata

1. Three-Bearded Rockling, or Sea Loach. Resembling the freshwater loach in its cirrated mouth, the Three-Bearded Rockling averages a foot to eighteen inches, becoming rich yellowish brown spotted with deep chestnut, with two barbules on the snout and one on the lower jaw. It frequents shallow weedy water, feeding on small Crustacea, and is little pursued since its flesh soon turns of an unpleasant smell, being rare in Scotland but common off Devon and Cornwall.
2. Five-Bearded Rockling. About the size of the Three-Bearded Rockling and once thought a mere variety, the Five-Bearded Rockling is known by four barbules on the snout and a dark or olive-brown body usually without spots. The most plentiful of the rocklings, it ranges to Orkney, frequents rocky weedy ground where it will not seize a bait, yet is taken with a hook in the Firth of Forth in July and sold among young cod and whiting.