ANGLER. 



209 



near the surface, he threw his boat's iron grapnel at the fish, 

 but, not terrified with the blow, it turned and seized the object 

 as it sunk. A struggle again was observed at the surface, 

 and on the approach of a boat it was found to proceed from 

 an Ansder in its efforts to swallow a gull, which it seems to 

 have laid hold of as it was floating on the surface. The fish 

 measured three feet in length, and had so far swallowed the 

 bird, which was found to be the Larus argetitatus, and which 

 measured almost four feet six inches across from wing to 

 wing, as that the stomach and gullet were filled, while the 

 feet, tail, and ends of the wings projected from the mouth. 

 The fish had become choked with the struggles of its prey, 

 and they together now form a portion of a local museum. An 

 Angler was seen to have seized a bird called the northern 

 diver, Colymbus gracialis ; but after a long and earnest struggle 

 both the combatants were secured by a fisherman. And, 

 however difficult it may be to imagine how it can happen 

 that such an apparently unwieldy fish has been able to lay 

 hold of the active birds and fishes we have mentioned, some 

 portion of the difficulty will disappear when we know that in 

 addition to the width of gape and stealthiness of approach, by 

 a particular construction of the uppermost portion of the chain 

 of vertebrae, by which a distance is preserved between the 

 upper processes of those bones nearest the head and the head 

 itself, the head may be lifted without any motion of the body; 

 which is contrary to what takes place in the generality of 

 fishes. 



As another proof that the Angler sometimes seeks its prey 

 at mid-water a fisherman had hooked a Codfish, and while 

 drawing it up, he felt a heavier Aveight attach itself to his 

 line; this proved to be an Angler of large size, which he 

 compelled to quit its hold, as it grasped its prey across the 

 mouth, by a heavy blow on the head, and the Codfish still 

 remained attached to the hook. In another instance an Angler 

 seized a Conger that had taken the hook, but after the last- 

 named fish had been engulphed within the cavern of the 

 mouth, and perhaps the stomach, it struggled through the 

 aperture of the gills, and in that situation both the fishes 

 were drawn up together. How indiscriminately these fishes 

 feed on each other appears from the fact that in the stomach 



VOL. II. 2 e 



