﻿GILL] LIFE HISTORY OF III E ANG 5 l 5 



on board the vessel on which an angler is taken, some one is feg, 

 i. ,-., doomed to die soon. They therefore never or hardly ever take 

 tli« angler on board, but prefer to cut the line and thus lose the hook 

 with the fish." 



An anemometrical Eacult) is attributed to the angler in Massachu- 

 setts. According to Storer, "among the fishermen in some pan-- of 

 the bay, there is a common saying, ' when you lake a goose fish, look 

 out for an easterly st< >rm.' " 



VIII. 1\ki..vi kins of i in-: Angler 



Although the angler is the only species of its family in northern 

 seas, quite a number arc found elsewhere, and especially in deep seas. 



The most primitive genus, if we may take the position of the 

 branchial apertures for our guide, is Chirolophius. This has, as C. T. 

 Regan has recently (1903) shown, the "gill openings partly below, 

 partly in front of and above the pectorals." So far as known the 

 vertebrae are only 19 or thereabouts. The typical species, C. naresii, 

 was made known from a specimen " taken at the Philippines at a 

 depth of 115 fathoms." Other species arc the C. moseleyi, C. mur- 

 rayi, and probably C. gracilimanus, C. mutilus, and C. lugubris, all 

 inhabiting the depths of the Indian and neighboring oceans. An- 

 other Lophiid found off the coast of Central America is also sup- 

 posed to belong to the same genus and designated C. spilurus. 



A genus agreeing with Chirolophius in the number of vertebrae 

 (19) but having the gill openings below or behind the bases of the 

 pectorals, as in Lophius, is Lophiomus which is now limited to a 

 single species — L. setigerus, occurring in moderately deep water 

 from Japan to the Cape of Good Hope. 



The genus Lophius still includes, besides the common angler, L. 

 piscatorius, a species as yet found only in the Mediterranean sea, 

 L. budegassa, and two others. One is the L. litulon which has been 

 found along the coasts of Japan and extends further northward than 

 the Lophiomus setigerus ; another has recently (1903) been described 

 as L. vaillanti of which specimens were found in the Atlantic around 

 " the Azores and Cape Verde islands at depths of 460-760 meters.'* 



A Lophiid said to have no vomerine teeth and consequently re- 

 garded by some as a distinct genus — Lopliiopsls — is retained in 

 LopJiius by Regan. 



Of the extinct relatives of the angler little is known. No re- 

 mains have been found in the pliocene or eocene formations but in an 

 upper eocene bed of Monte liolea (Italy) an imperfect fossilized 

 body of a species was obtained more than a century ago and con- 



