GEN. LOPHIUS. THE ANGLER. 285 



huge head, and the detached streamers which sur- 

 mount it, along with the position of the eye in the 

 centre of the horizontal face, it will readily be under- 

 stood how terror and disgust should have given 

 wings to many wild imaginations. The magnitude 

 of this strange looking fish still more increases this 

 disposition ; specimens of three and four feet are not 

 rare, Cuvier saw one at Caen, in 1789, which was 

 six feet long; Pontoppidon possessed one, which, 

 though dry, measured seven feet; and Duhamel 

 asserts that some reach to the length of ten feet. 



In a state of repose, and when the fish does not 

 inflate its throat or gill-sacs, the head is two-fifths 

 the length of the hody, and is somewhat broader, 

 and is withal very flat : behind the pectorals, the 

 size or width of the body is about one-fourth of the 

 length. The contour of the head is nearly circular ; 

 the lower jaw greatly extends beyond the upper, 

 and both have a range of teeth which are conical, 

 straight, long, pointed, and unequal ; the intermaxil- 

 laries, vomer, and pharyngeals, being also armed 

 with teeth. The three tentacula on the head are re- 

 garded as the three first spines of the anterior dorsal 

 fin, and the bony bases from which they rise, as 

 detached interspinous processes. The anterior two 

 are attached to a single piece of bone, ; the first, be- 

 tween the nostrils, is slender and nearly half the 

 length of the body, terminated by a little mem- 

 brane ; the second is neither so thick nor so long, 

 and the third rises from nearly the back of the 

 cranium. The motion of these detached rays is 



