NO. 1782. STRUCTURE AND HABITS OF WOLFFISHES—GILL. 175 



thea)'^ — that is, crabs, hermit crabs, lobsters, and shrimps — "were 

 found in about 50 per cent" of the wolf- or "catfishes" caught in 

 1889; "sandstars and molluscs were found each in about 30 per 

 cent," and "annelids and fish as articles of food were merely rep- 

 resented." 



Fulton (1903) examined eight fishes caught in the Moray Firth in 

 May, 1902, and found, besides crabs and shells, many brittle-stars 

 (ophiurids) and, in one fish, "a specimen of Aphrodite aculeata 

 [an annelid worm] and a fragment of a zoophyte." 



Verrill (1871) found in the stomach of a large fish caught at East- 

 port, Me., "at least four quarts of the common round sea-urchin 

 {Eury echinus drohachiensis) , most of them with the spines on and 

 many of them quite entire." From another he took "an equal 

 quantity of a mixture of the same sea-urchin and the large whelk 

 (Buccinum undatum). Many of the latter were entire or but slightly 

 cracked." It would thus appear that the crushing apparatus of the 

 fish is not called into requisition as often as might be expected, but, 

 in the stomach of one mentioned by Buckland, "nearly two pints" 

 of crabs had been ground "up to mince meat." 



Observations made in 1903 by R. A. Todd*^ corroborated the 

 shellfish diet of the wolffish. In the stomachs of six individuals 

 no fishes were found. The contents were shellfishes (scallops, etc.), 

 crabs, hermit crabs, and echinoderms. In fine the food depends 

 very much on what it can find for the time being, with instinctive 

 preference for that which can be crushed. 



A habit of an Alaskan wolflish {Anarrhiclias lepturus) has been 

 indicated by L. M. Turner (1886) which has not found a parallel 

 observer for the corresponding Atlantic form. ' ' The strong [front] 

 teeth are used to tear the sods of grass that may wash into the sea 

 from the shore or cliff ledges into pieces to eat." His "attention 

 was once directed to a floating sod, a short distance from the shore, 

 going through strange motions." A native informed him that it was a 

 wolffish and he "directed the canoe toward the sod and saw the fish 

 tearing it. It was with difficulty that" the fish was made to "leave 

 its food, and only after several thrusts at it with the paddle did it 

 swim off." The natives, it seems, also catch the fish "with hooks 

 baited with grass roots." It is probable that such assaults upon 

 vegetable masses are for obtaining the crabs and shells lurking in 

 them rather than for the plants themselves. 



Smitt asserts that a wolffish "apparently leaves its companion 

 fishes in peace, being perhaps of too sluggish temperament to trouble 

 them." W. R. Smith (1892) found remains of fishes in only two 

 wolffishcs out of twelve examined, herrings in one case and unidenti- 



o North Sea Fisheries Investigation Co., Report No. 2, 1905, p. 233. 



