HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP, 



173 



hole, he elevates and raises above his head the 

 aforesaid fishing-rod-like appendages with an al- 

 luring, fascinating, and withal graceful motion. The 

 smaller fry of the sea, the heedless, unsophisticated 

 sticklebacks, small herrings, plaice, gurnards, &c., 

 which swarm in the shallows, charmed by the lively, 

 captivating movements of this organic angling rod, 



among shore-fish. His aspect is absolutely hideous 

 and repulsive ; neither grace nor beauty is perceptible 

 anywhere. A loose, clammy skin covers the fish 

 almost without scales ; although it may be observed, 

 that the angle-like appendages with their spines, as 

 also the cephalic tentacles, &c., belong properly to 

 the dermal skeleton. The head is tremendously 



Fig. 100. — Blue and Red Wrasses (Labrns inixtns), male and female. 



or more probably agreeably excited thereby, stop to 

 examine and inquire, when lo ! a prodigious, un- 

 suspected pitfall yawns beneath them, and ere they 

 know what they are about, they are engulfed in the 

 merciless, ravenous, wide-gaping maw of the hideous 

 flat fish lying at the bottom. The creature is by no 

 means fastidious as to 

 his diet ; in fact, unlike 

 an epicure, he does not 

 seem to know what he 

 is eating. Skates a 

 yard long, gurnards ten 

 inches long, mullet, a 

 whole live widgeon, 

 the butt end of a whip, 

 and even a human leg 

 have each been seized 



or devoured by this unsqueamish fish. On con- 

 templating this multifarious assortment of victuals 

 we feel induced to suspect that this creature is pos- 

 sessed of a kind of instinctive predilection for the 

 seizing bodily of any solid object whatever which 

 happens to come within the influence of his jaws. 

 The angler may be styled the "heavy villain" 



Fig. loi.— Bjllan Wrasse (Labrus maculaUis) 



large, and flattened out like a thick pancake ; and 

 although attached to a thin slim body, is capable of 

 independent movement. The two dorsal fins are 

 united beneath the skin, and are seemingly of little 

 service for purposes either of balance or progression. 

 The pectorals are enormously broad and thick, like 



large flippers or scrap- 

 ers, with the carpal 

 portion projecting free- 

 ly from the body, and 

 no doubt possessed of 

 a fine sense of touch. 

 The ventrals which are 

 placed underneath the 

 head before the pec- 

 torals are small, but 

 they aid the latter or- 

 gans in enabling the animal to promenade along the 

 sea-bottom. The mouth is extremely wide and spacious. 

 It commonly measures about a foot broad, although the 

 case of one a yard broad is on record. It is furnished 

 with a potent armoury of sharp, conical, incurved 

 teeth, the whole being fully competent to tuck in all 

 at once, and to securely retain (the latter a not unim- 



