Order Pediculati : The Anglers 



545 



flat, cushion-like expansions of the compound tunicate Botryl- 

 lus violaceus. Thus disguised at every point, the angler has 

 merely to lie prone, as is its wont, among the stones and debris at 

 the bottom of the sea and to wait for the advent of its unsus- 

 pecting prey, which, approaching to browse from what it takes 

 to be a flat rock differing in no respect from that off which it 

 obtained the last appetizing morsel of weed or worm finds itself 

 suddenly engulfed beyond recall within the merciless jaws of 

 this marine impostor." 



The great fishing-frog of the North Atlantic, Lophius piscato- 

 rius, is also known as angler, monkfish, goosefish, allmouth, 



FIG. 496. Anko or Fishing-frog, Lophius litulon (Jordan). Matsushima Bay, Japan. 



wide-gape, kettleman, and bellows-fish. It is common in shal- 

 low water both in America and Europe, ranging southward to 

 Cape Hatteras and to the Mediterranean. It reaches a length 

 of three feet or more. A fisherman told Mr. Goode that "he 

 once saw a struggle in the water, and found that a goosefish had 

 swallowed the -head and neck of a large loon, which had pulled 

 it to the surface and was trying to escape. There is authentic 

 record of seven wild ducks having been taken from the stomach 

 of one of them. Slyly approaching from below, they seize 

 birds as they float upon the surface." 

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