ANGLER. 207 



and who are without a suspicion of the dana^ei' proceeding from 

 the gaping but quiescent cavern of a mouth. And formidable 

 indeed is that gulph which lies open to receive the prev, as 

 hungry is the stomach which is prepared to receive it. "This 

 fish is all one vast extended mouth," says Oppian; to which 

 we may add by adaptation, from our English poet Spenser 



"The open mouth, that seemed to contain 

 A full good peck within the utmost brim, 

 All set with dreadful teeth in ranges twain, 

 That terrified his foes, and armed him, 

 Appearing like the mouth of Orcus ghastly grim." 



The extent of the mouth is indeed formidable, for in an 

 example which measured four feet and a half in length, and 

 weighed seventy-two pounds, this organ measured fourteen 

 inches across; and this in action is capable of being greatly 

 extended by means of several joints with which these parts 

 are supplied, to a larger degree than in most other fishes. In 

 opening the mouth the lower jaw is rather protruded than 

 lowered. The upper jaw is also capable of some degree of 

 protrusion, and at its symphysis a sidelong motion is also put 

 in action, by which it appears possible that the Angler might 

 be able to swallow a prey equal, or nearly so, to its own 

 bulk, to which also a wide gullet can afford a passage and 

 the stomach a welcome; while the skin of the body is so 

 loose as to allow of any degree of distension without incon- 

 venience, and there are no ribs on the sides that might offer 

 a mechanical resistance. Nor can the food pass easily out of 

 the stomach into the intestines without being entirely digested, 

 for its lower or pyloric orifice is small, and there is reason 

 for supposing that the process of digestion is itself slow. On 

 one occasion there were nearly three quarters of a bundled 

 of herrings found in the stomach of an Angler, and so little 

 change had they suffered that they were sold by the fis;hernien 

 in the market, without any suspicion in the buyer of the 

 manner in which they had been obtained. In another instance 

 there were taken from the stomach twenty-one Flounders and 

 a Dorey, all of them of sufficient size and sufficiently uninjured 

 to make a good appearance in the market where they were 

 sold. 



