ANA 



ANA 



>>!; body roundish, caudal-fin distinct. 

 There arc three speck's. A. lupus, or 

 ravenous wolf-fish, inhabits the- northern 

 grows to 15 feet long ; it is a most 

 fierce :uid ravenous fisl), and \vill fasten 

 on any tiling within its reach. It feeds on 

 shell-fish, which it grinds to pieces with 

 its teeth, ami swallows shells and all: 

 moves slowly with something of a scrpen- 

 I'HK- motion; the grinders are often found 

 fossile, and are called toad-stones; the 

 flesh is good, hut not often eaten. The 

 fossile teeth were formerly much esteem- 

 ed for imaginary virtues, and were set in 

 gold and worn as rings. Notwithstanding 

 tlie ferocity of this fish, which is as dread- 

 ful to the small inhabitants of the wa- 

 in-, us ilie wolf is to those on land, it is 

 sometime* attacked and destroyed by an 

 enemy of far inferior size and strength,viz. 

 the ryclopterus, or lump-fish, which, fas- 

 i'-niii;, r itself on its neck, adheres immove- 

 ably, tormenting, it in such a manner as 

 1<> cause its death. The wolf-fish fre- 

 quents the deep part of the sea, and in 

 the spring approaches the coast, in order 

 to deposit itsspawn among marine plants: 

 the ova are about the. size of peas; and 

 the young are of a greenish cast, like that 

 of sea-wrack, among which they reside 

 for sometime after their birth. See Plate 

 I. Pisces, fig. 3. A. minor is found in the 

 Greenland seas; and the A. pantherinus 

 inhabits the Northern and Frozen Ocean. 

 ANARRHINUM, in botany, a genus of 

 the Didynamia Angiospermia class and 

 order: calyx five-leaved; corol with a 

 nectariferous prominence atits base point- 

 ing downwards ; the upper-lip flat, with- 

 out palate, and the orifice pervious; cap- 

 sule two-celled, many-valved. There 

 are five species. 



ANAS, in natural history, a genus of 

 birds of the order Anseres. The bill in 

 this genus is strong, broad, flat or 

 depressed, and commonly furnished at 

 the end with an additional piece termed a 

 nail, the edges of the mandibles marked 

 with sharp teeth ; nostrils small, oval ; 

 tongue broad, edges near the base fring- 

 ed; toes four, three before and one In-- 

 hind, the middle one the longest. Ac- 

 cording to Latham, there are 98 species, 

 iM-sides varieties , but Umelin gives about 



120 Spr 



From the swan downward to the teal, 

 they are all a dcaii-plumaged beautiful 

 race of birds, and some of them exquisite- 

 ly so. Those which have been reclaimed 

 from a state of nature, and li\e depen- 

 dant on man, are extremely useful to 

 him : under his protection they breed in 



great abundance, and, without requiring 

 much of his time and care, lead their 

 young to the pool, almost as soon as 

 hatched, where they instantly, with in- 

 stinctive perception, begin to search for 

 their food, which at first consists chiefly 

 of weeds, worms, and insects ; those they 

 sift, as it were from the mud, and for that 

 purpose their bills are admirably adapt- 

 ed. When they are farther advanced in 

 life, they pick up the sodden scattered 

 grain of the farm-yard, which, but for 

 their assiduous searchings, would be lost. 

 To them also are allotted the larger 

 quantities of corn which are shaken by 

 the winds from the,>yer-ripened ears in 

 the fields. On this clean and simple food. 

 they soon become fat, and their fh sh/s 

 accounted delicious and nourish!' 

 a wild state, birds of various kinds prq- 

 serve their original plumage; but whca 

 tamed, they soon begin to vary, and^ 

 shew the effects of domestication : this 

 is the case with the tame goose and the 

 duck, which differ as much from the wild 

 of their respective kinds, as they do from 

 each other. We shall notice the follow- 

 ing, as among the most interesting of the 

 species .- 



Anas Cygnus, the wild swan, measures 

 five feet in length, and above seven in 

 breadth, and weighs from thirteen to six- 

 teen pounds. The bill is three inches 

 long, of a yellowish white ; from the base 

 to the middle, and thence to the tip, 

 black ; the bare space from the bill over 

 the eye and eye-lids is yellow : the whole 

 plumage in adidt birds is of a pure white, 

 and next to the skin they are clothed 

 with a thick fine down : the legs are 

 black. This species generally keeps to- 

 gether in small flocks, or families, except 

 in the pairing season, and at the setting 

 in of winter. At the latter period they 

 assemble in immense multitudes, parti- 

 cularly on the large rivers and lakes of 

 the thinly-inliabited northern p:. 

 Europe, Asia, and America : but when 

 the extremity of the weather threatens to 

 become insupportable, in order to shun 

 the gathering storm, they shape their 

 course liifjh in the air, in divided and di- 

 minished numbers, in search of milder 

 climate*. In such seasons they are most 

 commonly seen in various parts of the 

 British isies, and in other more southern 

 countries of Kurope. The same is ob- 

 served of them i.i ' American 

 states. They do not, however, remain 

 longer than till the approach of the- 

 H hen they again r 'ire northward 

 A'tic regions to breed. A 



