74 MONKFISH. 



only be explained by its being more select in its appetite for 

 food. One which measured four feet six inches in length, had 

 in its stomach twenty-eii^ht opercula, or head-covers of whelks, 

 without the shells, Avhich latter had been thrown up from the 

 stomach, as the Sharks and Skates are known to do with 

 whatever indigestible materials they occasionally swallow. And 

 besides these remains of what appears to have been a favourite 

 food, there were also fragments of small fishes, and two stones 

 about the size of nutmegs, which probably had been taken 

 in consequence of having been covered with some sorts of 

 encrusting corals, and would have also been thrown up from 

 the stomach in their turn, 



Oppian says that it produces young twice in the year, by 

 which he may be understood to mean no more than that some 

 of them are found in a fertile condition at opposite seasons. 

 I have found the eggs as large as walnuts in May, and the 

 young, usually to about twenty, to be expelled all at once in 

 July, on the instant when the pregnant fish was taken into 

 the boat. Risso mentions the same thing, and ascribes the 

 sudden parturition to faintness produced by the cessation of 

 the action of the gills, but more probably it proceeds from the 

 alarm of capture. These young ones are about a foot in 

 length, and closely resemble the parent fish, even to the 

 roughness of the skin and spines, with teeth also in the jaws. 



The ancients believed that this fish had an affection for its 

 young similar to that displayed by the Blue Shark and some 

 others of that race; according to a maxim which they regarded 

 as universal, that it was the property of every creature which 

 produces its young alive, to manifest love for their preserva- 

 tion. In the present instance, in the prospect of danger they 

 supposed it shewn by affording them shelter in the depression 

 between the head and pectoral fins. 



The skin of this fish was anciently of much use in the arts, 

 being of that particular degree of roughness which fitted it 

 for polishing ivory and wood; on which account the fish was 

 called by the Greeks Rhine, or the file. 



It is disregarded as food in the present day, but in ancient 

 times it was otherwise. Paulus iEgineta, a physician of Greece, 

 speaking of cartilaginous fishes, says: "The Torpedo and 

 Fireflair have soft and sweet flesh, which is easily digested; 



