THE FISHING-FROG. 385 



wise on land. In this latter case the spines retain their point and 

 prickliness, as in the living animal, till in the process of decay they 

 separate from their sockets in the skin, and drop in brittle, broken 

 fragments to the ground. A question, then, for future investiga- 

 tion is this, Do the spines of all drowned hedgehogs lose their 

 prickliness and point, and become soft and gelatinous 1 If so, has 

 fresh water alone this effect, or is it necessary that the animal 

 should be some time immersed in salt water ? 



Within a short distance of the drowned hedgehogs, lay a large 

 angler or fishing-frog, the Lophius piscatorius of ichthyologists, 

 and a frequent waif on our shores after a gale. It had evidently 

 been caught by the storm in shallow water, and been beaten to 

 death by the weight and force of the waves, for it was in excellent 

 condition, and there was nothing to indicate death in any other 

 way. Why in this fish such a huge head, with its formidable array 

 of recurved teeth, and such a cavernous, capacious gullet, should 

 be joined to a body comparatively so diminutive, is a puzzle that 

 has never yet been satisfactorily solved ; nor can we ourselves, up 

 to this present moment, advance even a plausible conjecture in 

 explanation of an anomaly that must have attracted the attention 

 of thousands. The disproportion between the immense head and 

 the small and slender body is as great as if you erected a porch 

 lofty and wide enough to serve as the main entrance to a cathedral, 

 and vestibule to correspond, in order to enter a dwelling consisting 

 after all but of a single bedroom. Or, to put it in another way, it 

 is as if you built a large mill, with the most powerful machinery 

 possible, in order to grind sufficient meal for the daily consumption 

 of a single dyspeptic customer. The-fishing frog, has, we believe, 

 been of late successfully introduced into more than one of our many 

 aq*yaria, but we are not aware that any satisfactory explanation of 

 the difficulty which we are considering has as yet been arrived 

 at. A full and sufficient explanation, however, you may be sure 



2B 



