THE FISHING FROG. 337. 



the coloured membrane about in all directions. 

 This attracts the fishes in its vicinity, who hasten 

 to seize upon tempting spoil, but they no sooner 

 attempt to nibble at the apparent worm than the 

 angler withdraws the lure, and elevating his 

 enormous mouth, seizes his unsuspecting prey, 

 and, swallowing it in a moment, immediately 

 holds out the bait to capture another prize. 



Many authentic anecdotes are related of the 

 voracity of this fish, a quality which the extra- 

 ordinary magnitude of its mouth unequivocally 

 indicates. A fisherman had hooked a large cod- 

 fish, and while drawing it up he felt a much 

 heavier weight attach itself to his line. This 

 proved to be a large angler, which had seized 

 the cod, and which the fisherman compelled to 

 quit its prey only by giving it some heavy blows 

 on the head. On another occasion, an angler 

 seized a large conger-eel, which had taken the 

 hook, and was in the act of swallowing the huge 

 morsel, when the prey escaped from the angler's 

 jaws by finding its way out by the gill-covers 

 behind the mouth,; and in this condition both 

 were drawn up together. Another of those fishes, 

 pressed by hunger, is known to have seized at 

 the top of the water a large cork buoy employed 

 as a float for a deep sea-line ; and it is said that 

 some fishermen near Queensferry, in Scotland, 

 observing the water much discoloured at one par-* 

 ticular spot where.it was not very deep, rowed to 

 the place, and, on poking the bottom with a long 

 handled mop, found it taken hold of by an angler, 



