76 ACANTHOPTERYGIL 



has been kept moist the fish has been known to live out of its proper element for 

 several days. Some authors have supposed that the young of these fishes when 

 alarmed seek for shelter in the branchial pouch in the axilla of the pectoral fin. 

 Thompson alludes to an instance mentioned in a Dublin newspaper, wherein a 

 man bathing at Kingstown was seized by the leg by a Lopliius, and considerably 

 injured : the fish was said to have been captured, so there was no doubt as to the 

 species. Montague has remarked that even when captured its rapacious appetite 

 is not destroyed, as it generally devours some of its fellow prisoners, which, 

 especially flounders, have been occasionally taken from its stomach alive. 



These fishes have also been watched when in confinement, thus Mr. Saville 

 Kent {Field, Nov. 14th, 1874) tells us that at the Brighton Aquarium the angler 

 gave the appearance of a mass of rugged rock, the lower jaw being like a ledge 

 from which are dependant small fleshy tentacles, a line of which are continued 

 backwards along the sides to the tail. These resemble small, flat, calcareous 

 sponges, Grantia compressa, Ascidians, Zoophytes, and other low organisms, which 

 are found on the lower margin of every rocky ledge. On its head are two large 

 tendrils employed for alluring prey, the foremost of which, by its digitated 

 membrane is the facsimile of a young frond of oar-weed, Laminaria digitata, both 

 in shape and colour : and in the tendril behind it we have a repetition of the 

 same, with the blade of the frond, as it were, worn away by the current of the 

 ocean. The large and prominent eye has the aspect of a hollow, truncated cone, 

 and with its longitudinal stripes, resembles the shell of an acorn barnacle with an 

 amount of exactness which is patent to the most ordinary observer. Lying prone 

 at the bottom of the ocean, among rocks and debris, it might well pass muster as 

 an inanimate object, which other fish could approach with impunity, and not 

 discover their error until too late to escape from its merciless jaws. When it 

 first discovers its prey, it becomes excited, and works its worm-like filament, 

 which is furnished with a glittering piece of skin at the top, which acts as a lure 

 to the small fish. This curious appendage is used just as if the creature was 

 going to throw a fly to tempt the fish. In the crevice of some marine cliff it has 

 merely to remain quiet, allowing its tendrils to sway about, moved by the 

 current, as are the surrounding weeds, and his diet, foraging about for their food, 

 become a prey for his larder. 



To demonstrate their slowness of digestion, Couch remarks that " on one occasion 

 there were nearly three-quarters of a hundred herrings found in the stomach of 

 an angler, and so little change had they suffered, that they were sold by the 

 fishermen in the market without any suspicion in the buyer of the manner in 

 which they had been obtained." In another instance, twenty-one flounders and 

 a dory were similarly found and disposed of. Fishermen often open these fishes 

 to obtain the contents of their stomach. 



Means of capture. Sometimes trawled, also taken by nets and baits. Pennant's 

 remark that the fishermen about Scarborough return them to the sea because 

 they devour dog-fishes, is repeated in the Zoologist (p. 3333) as also applicable 

 to the Bristol Channel. There is no doubt they are very destructive to 

 other fishes, while considering the wonderful number of eggs they deposit, but 

 the comparatively few young that are seen, they must be subject to some 

 wholesale destruction as fry, or else when in the ova state. 



Breeding. In December, 1841, Thompson examined an example 4| feet in length : 

 it was a female with the ova, well-developed, computed to number 1,427,344, 

 each ovum was 1/32 part of an inch in diameter, and the total when weighed 

 were found to be 1 lb. 13 oz. avoirdupois. Baird 1. c. has recorded the spawn 

 of this fish resembling a floating sheet of mucus from sixty to one hundred feet 

 square. Valenciennes says of an example only two inches in length, that the pectoral 

 and ventral fins are very long, while the spine has more numerous and much 

 longer tentacles than the adult : and that some of the pectoral rays extend a good 

 distance beyond the membrane. Diiben obtained the young in Norway, but which 

 appeared to differ so from Valenciennes' account that he considered it new, 

 terming it L. eurypterus, the first dorsal spine terminating in a transverse 

 cylindrical knob, provided with cilia, and being scarcely above half the length of 



