ANGLER FISH AND THEIR ALLIES 2747 



rivers; but, while the majority are confined to the tropics, a few range into the 

 warmer parts of the temperate zones. As a genus, the true frogfishes are charac- 

 terized by the spinous portion of the dorsal fin having three strong spines, and the 

 presence of several spines on the gill cover; while in many species the margins of 

 the mouth, as well as other parts of the head, are provided with shining tentacles. 

 Out of about a dozen species, one (B. didactylus] occurs in the Mediterranean. Some 

 of the species have a poison gland under each pectoral fin; and at Penang all the 

 tribe are regarded as highly poisonous, although in Bombay their flesh is eaten, by 

 the poorer classes of natives. The poison gland attains its highest development in 

 a species from the Pacific coast of Panama, described under the name of Thalassoph- 

 ryne, in which it is stated to be as perfect as in the venomous snakes. In this fish 

 each opercular bone terminates in a long spine similar to those of the dorsal fin; 

 these spines being perforated by a canal having an aperture at their base and sum- 

 mit. This canal communicates with a sac containing the poisonous secretion, which 

 can be made to flow out through the spine by pressure. 



ANGLER FISH AND THEIR ALLIES Family 



Passing over one very unimportant family, our next representatives of the group 

 under consideration are the angler fish and their allies; a family remarkable for their 

 extreme ugliness and strange forms. Possessing the group characeristics already 

 noticed, they are specially distinguished by having the spinous dorsal fin placed 

 far forward on the head, and generally modified more or less completely into tenta- 

 cles, although it may be represented by isolated spines. The head and fore part of 

 the body are of enormous relative size, and the teeth in the capacious mouth are 

 either villiform or rasp-like. When present, the pelvic fins consist of four or five 

 soft rays; and the pectorals are supported by a prolongation of some of the superior 

 bones. The gill opening is reduced to a. small aperture situated near the pectoral 

 fin; and the gills themselves are either two and a half or three and a half in num- 

 ber, false gills being generally absent. These fish are distributed over all seas. Dr. 

 Giinther writes that " the habits of all are equally sluggish and inactive; they are 

 very bad swimmers; those found near the coasts lie on the bottom of the sea, hold- 

 ing on with their arm-like pectoral fins to seaweeds or stones, between which they 

 are hidden; those of pelagic habits attach themselves to floating seaweed or other 

 objects, and are at the mercy of wind and current." A large proportion of the genera 

 have, therefore, found their way to the greatest depths of the ocean, retaining all 

 the characteristics of their surface ancestors, but assuming the modifications by 

 which they live in abysmal depths. 



The small number of species constituting the typical genus 

 (Lophius) of the family include its ugliest representatives, among 

 these being the British angler fish (L. piscatorius) , which also rejoices in the titles 

 of fishing frog, frogfish, or sea devil. Its leading characteristics are to be found 

 in the enormous size of the broad, depressed, and rounded head, near the middle of 

 the upper surface of which are situated the small eyes; and the great width of the 



