LOPHOB 11 ANCH1I LOR ANTHER. 



(ii 



out of the water and on the surface of the weed, have 

 procured it the name of histrio, or the actor. 



Another species, or perhaps only the last-mentioned 

 one in a different age, has been noticed as occur- 

 ing in the Indian Ocean, and an account of it was 

 first given by Commercori. It is of a nankin colour, 

 marked with bluish brown spots, and the anterior 

 filament or ray on the head is divided into three, and 

 all round its mouth is thickly beset with soft thread- 

 like appendages. It is sometimes kept in vases in 

 the same manner as gold fishes ; and at times it 

 remains in a position as if it were entirely dead, 

 after which it suddenly throws itself into the most 

 playful attitudes. In the experiments which have 

 been made with it while in a state of confinement, a 

 change of its manners, from living in salt water to 

 living in water fresh or nearly so, has been attempted, 

 and we believe in part succeeded. There are still 

 some other small species in the tropical seas, but their 

 manners present nothing that can be very interesting to 

 the general reader ; and the published accounts of them 

 in general confound all the species with each other. 



MALTHE forms Cuvier's third subgenus. The fishes 

 forming it have the head very broad and flat, espe- 

 cially where the sides are enlarged exteriorly by the 

 sacs containing the gills. Their eyes are placed far 

 in advance, and their mouth is of moderate size and 

 protractile. Their gills contain six or seven rays, and 

 open posteriorly by a hole below each pectoral fin. 

 They have but a single dorsal fin, which is small and 

 soft. Their bodies are roughened over with osseous 

 tubercles, and there are filaments along the lines of 

 the sides ; but their heads are without the free rays 

 which distinguish the true anglers. Among these 

 may be enumerated the species which gets the name 

 of the sea-bat, which is common in the warmer seas 

 of America ; and a few others which are met with 

 also in the warmer seas, but they possess very little 

 interest. 



Although the genus lophius is one of the most sin- 

 gular of the inhabitants of the deep, and though it 

 does not appear that the structure, or at all events 

 the use of the structure, and more especially 

 the habits of the angler of Europe, are very closely 

 represented in any of the others ; yet the tropical 

 ones, being fishes not used as food, and therefore not 

 generally taken by the sailors, belong to those margins 

 of the revolving masses of sea-weed which grow in 

 the water without being rooted, and in the whole 

 history of which there is something very peculiar, 

 though the internal parts of them are not very easily 

 explored. Those great masses of floating sea-weed 

 are found only in tropical seas, and only then in the 

 broad waters, where the action of the tides and the 

 position of the land tend to produce a circulating 

 current. The weeds get into the eddy of this current, 

 which, both in the South Atlantic and in the North, 

 occupies a very considerable breadth ; and as this 

 weed is living, it has no tendency to approach the 

 land. It affords shelter for countless numbers of 

 small marine animals ; and these, in their turn, feed a 

 number of fishes. Radiated animals also abound in 

 it, and some of the long-winged sea-birds resort to it 

 as to a rich pasture. To traverse the thickest of this 

 weed in a ship would be a heavy, and for anything we 

 know, a hazardous task. It would be heavy, because 

 of the mere interruption of the waters, and also be- 

 cause many, both of the plants and of the animals, 

 would be apt to adhere to a ship's bottom and mul- 



tiply on it, to the great lessening of its progress 

 through the water. It might, be dangerous, for there 

 are volcanic grounds in the neighbourhood of both 

 accumulations, and there is no knowing how many 

 discharges of volcanic matter may have been thrown 

 up, and merely concealed by the surface. It is pro- 

 bable also that there may be coral formations in those 

 very singular portions of the ocean. 



LOPHOBRANCHII. The fifth order of the 

 fishes in Cuvier's arrangement, the characteristic of 

 which is that the fibres of their gills are collected in 

 little round tufts, which are arranged in pairs along 

 the arches. This character is a very marked one, as 

 there are no fishes but themselves which possess it. 

 Their gills are covered externally in the integuments, 

 so that there is only a small opening for the escape 

 of the water. The surfaces of their bodies are covered 

 over with a sort of armour consisting of angular plates 

 of shelly matter. There are but few genera, Syn- 

 gnathus and Pegasus comprise the whole. The first 

 contains three divisions, sea-needles, sea-horses, and 

 another species which has no very characteristic 

 English name, though pipe-mouth is the nearest ap- 

 proximation. They are fishes of very singular forms, 

 all inhabitants of the tropical seas, and none of them 

 of any value in an economical point of view. 



LOPHOTES. A genus of fishes belonging to 

 Cuvier's eighth family of spinous-finned fishes, or 

 those which have the body of a lengthened or riband- 

 shaped form. They have the head short, sur- 

 mounted by an elevated bony crest, to the top of 

 which there is articulated a long spinous ray ; and 

 the rest having a membranous margin, and along the 

 upper part of the back nearly to the tail there is a 

 low fin with simple rays. The caudal fin is separate 

 from the others, but very small, the pectorals are of 

 moderate size, and the ventrals are so very small, as 

 hardly to be perceptible. The teeth are pointed and 

 a little serrated, and the mouth opens upwards. 

 The eyes are very large ; the only known species 

 inhabits the Mediterranean, where it is very rare. It 

 is in that sea chiefly that we find the most singularly 

 formed fishes, and some of them not met with even 

 in the same latitudes of the open Atlantic, or indeed 

 nearer than the Indian seas ; and it is worthy of 

 remark too, that there are some shells still found in 

 the Mediterranean, which are not now found except 

 there and in the Indian seas ; and that many of the 

 fossil shells met with in those deposits, which have 

 been evidently formed by the Mediterranean at some 

 time or other, are also more connected with the In- 

 dian sea than with the Atlantic. 



LOPHYRUS (Latreille). A genus of hymeno- 

 pterous insects, belonging to the family of the sawflies 

 (Tent/tredinid(s), distinguished by the beautiful bipec- 

 tinated antennae of the males, forming a large triangu- 

 lar brush ; those of the females are serrated. The 

 larvae have twenty-two legs, live in society, especially 

 upon the species of the genus Finns, to the young 

 plants of which they are occasionally very injurious. 

 There are three British species, the type being the 

 Tent/iredo pint of Linnaeus. 



LORANTHE^E. A small but very curious natural 

 order of plants containing two genera Viscum and Lo- 

 ranthus, to which has been added Aucuba by Bartling 

 and Richard. This addition is, however, not yet fully 

 sanctioned by other botanists, owing to the uncer- 

 tainty respecting the character of the fruit of the au- 

 cuba. The viscums have little or no beauty, but the 



