﻿508 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [VOL. 47 



having been taken from the stomach of one of them. Slyly approach- 

 ing from below, they seize birds as they float upon the surface." 



A number of analogous instances of capture of birds might be 

 given. Birds quite as large as a goose have been taken, such as the 

 loon and gull (Larus argentatus). Reliable Cape Cod fishermen, 

 Captains Nathaniel E. Atwood and Nathaniel Blanchard, assured Dr. 

 D. H. Storer that " when opened, entire sea-fowl such as large gulls, 

 are frequently found in their stomachs, which they supposed them 

 to catch in the night, when they are floating upon the surface of the 

 water." Storer was also "informed by Captain Leonard West, of 

 Chilmark, that he had known a goose-fish to be taken having in its 

 stomach 6 coots in a fresh condition. These he considered to have 

 been swallowed when they had been diving to the bottom in search 

 of food." 



By far the most valuable studies of the food of the angler were 

 made by T. Wemyss Fulton and published in 1903. No less than 

 " 541 anglers of various sizes, caught mostly in the Moray Firth, 

 Aberdeen Bav, and the deep waters of the Shetlands were ex- 

 amined." Fulton's studies were for the purpose of ascertaining " the 

 amount of destruction caused by this species among the food fishes." 

 It appears that, " so far as the anglers investigated " were con- 

 cerned, " the principal food consisted of whitings, sand-eels, haddocks 

 and common dabs, and in smaller amount of herrings, solenettes, and 

 others." The " proportions differ on the different grounds, and at 

 different seasons." A noteworthy circumstance is that " the great 

 majority of the fishes found in the stomachs were small, even when 

 the angler was large." The rarity of large fishes was supposed by 

 Fulton to point " to their greater caution than when younger." Be- 

 sides fishes " the only other organisms found in the stomachs were a 

 shore-crab in one and a swimming-crab in another, and cephalopods 

 in thirteen." 



Another noteworthy characteristic of the angler is the tenacity 

 with which it holds on to what it has seized. A couple of anecdotes 

 told by Jonathan Couch (1862) will illustrate. " Mr. Thompson, of 

 Belfast, records an instance where a gentleman discovered an angler 

 near the shore, and presented the butt-end of his whip to it, when it 

 seized and held by it until it was thus drawn on shore. An angler 

 of large size was also discovered in shallow water by a couple of boys 

 who were in a boat, where they happened to be without oars. But 

 with the intention, perhaps, of annoying the fish, they loosened a 

 board that lay along the bottom of the boat and thrust it within the 

 creature's expanded jaws, which immediately closed upon it. A 



