184 PISCES. 



LoPHius, Cuv. 



The head excessively large in proportion to the rest of the body, 

 very broad and depressed, and spinous in many places; the mouth 

 deeply cleft and armed with pointed teethj the lower jaw furnished 

 with numerous cirri; two distinct dorsals, some rays of the first se- 

 parated before and movable on the head, where they rest on 

 a horizontal interspinal? the branchial membrane forming a very 

 large sac, opening in the axilla, and supported by six very long 

 rays; the operculum small. There are but three branchije on each 

 side. It is asserted that these fishes live in the mud; where, by agi- 

 tating the rays of. their head, they attract smaller ones, who take 

 the often enlarged and fleshy extremities of those rays for worms, 

 and thus become their victims; it is also said that they can seize or 

 retain them in their branchial sac.(l) They have two very short 

 caeca, near the origin of the intestine, but no natatory bladder. 



L. piscatorius, L.; Bl., 87; Sea-Devil; Galanga, &c. (The 

 Angler.) A large fish, of from four to five feet in length, inha- 

 biting the seas of Europe, whose hideous figure has rendered it 

 celebrated. 



L. parvipinnis, Cuv. A very similar species that is found in 

 the same seas; its second dorsal however is lower, and it has 

 only twenty-five vertebrae, while the piscatorius has thirty. (2) 



Chironectes. Antennarius, Commers. 



Four rays on the head, as in Lophius; the first of which is slen- 

 der, and frequently terminating in a tuft; the succeeding ones, aug- 

 mented by a membrane, are sometimes much enlarged, and at others 

 united into a fin. The body and head are compressed; the mouth 

 cleft vertically: the only opening of the branchis, which are furnish- 

 ed with four rays, is a canal and a small hole behind the pectoral; 

 the dorsal occupies nearly the whole length of the back. The en- 

 tire body is frequently provided with cutaneous appendages; there 



(1) Geoff.,Ann. duMus.,X, p. 180. 



(2 J We are ignorant whether it is the Lophias budecassa of M. Spinola and 

 Risso or not, that species being described as more fawn-coloured and varied than 

 the common one. 



Add the Loph. setigerus, Vahl, Soc. Hist. Nat. Copenh. IV, p. 215, and pi. iii, f. 

 5 and 6, improperly named viviparus by Bl,, Syst., pi. xxxii. 



N.B. The Baudroye Ferguson, Lacep-, Phil. Trans. LIII, xiii; the Lophius cornu- 

 hicuso{ Sh., Borlase, Corn., xxvii, 6; the L. barbatus, Gmel., Act. Stockh., 1779, 

 fasc. Ill, pi. iv, are merely altered specimens of the ^iscafonus; the L. monoptery- 

 gius, Shaw, Nat. Misc., 202 and 203, is a Torpedo disfigured by the stuffer. 



