CARTILAGINOUS FISHES. 



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a tadpole of enormous size , for it grows to above 

 five feet long, and its mouth is sometimes a 

 yard wide. Nothing can exceed its deformity. 

 The head is much bigger than the whole 

 body; the under jaw projects beyond the 

 upper, and both are armed with rows of slender 

 sharp teeth: the palate and the tongue are 

 furnished with teeth in like manner: the eyes 

 are placed on the top of the head, and are en- 

 compassed with prickles : immediately above 

 the nose, are two long beards or filaments, 

 small in the beginning, but thicker at the 

 end, and round : these, as it is said, answer 

 a very singular purpose ; for being made 

 somewhat resembling a fishing-line, it is as- 

 serted, that the animal converts them to the 

 purposes of fishing. With these extended, as 

 Pliny asserts, the fishing frog hides in muddy 

 waters, and leaves nothing but the beards to 

 be seen : the curiosity of the smaller fish brings 

 them to view these filaments, and their hunger 

 induces them to seize the bait; upon which 

 the animal in ambush instantly draws in its 

 filaments, with the little fish that had taken 

 the bait, and devours it without mercy. This 

 story, though apparently improbable, has found 

 credit among some of our best naturalists ; 

 but what induces me to doubt the fact is, that 

 there is another species of this animal, that 

 has no beards, which it would not want if they 

 were necessary to the existence of the kind. 

 Rondeletius informs us, that if we take out 

 the bowels, the body will appear with a kind 

 of transparence ; and that, if a lighted candle 

 be placed within the body, as in a lantern, 

 the whole has a very formidable appearance. 

 The fishermen, however, have in general a 



stirs up the sand or mud : hidden by the obscurity thus 

 produced, it elevates these appendages, moves them in 

 various directions by way of attraction as a bait, and 

 the small fishes approaching either to examine or to seize 

 them, immediately become the prey of the fisher. 



Numerous are the writers who have borne their testi- 

 mony to this habit, and some have extolled it as raising 

 the intellectual character of this fish beyond that of 

 most of its class. Half the animal world seem destined 

 to destroy each other, some by open violence, others by 

 stratagem ; and this design in the angler, though singu- 

 lar, is not more wonderful than that of the spiders among 

 insects, who spin and repair their widely-spread webs 

 to catch other insects upon which they subsist. 



The angler has been known to measure five feet in 

 length, but the most common size is about three feet. 

 Mr Couch says, "It makes but little difference what 

 the prey is, either in respect of size or quality. A 

 fisherman had hooked a cod-fish, and while drawing it 

 up he felt a heavier weight attach itself to his line : this 

 proved to be an angler of large size, which he compelled 

 to quit its hold by a heavy blow on its head, leaving its 

 prey still attached to the hook. In another instance, 

 an angler seized a conger eel that had taken the hook j 

 but after the latter had been engulphed in the enormous 

 jaws and perhaps stomach, it struggled through the 

 gill-aperture of the angler, and in that situation both 

 were drawn up together. I have been told of its swal- 

 lowing the large ball of cord employed as a buoy to a 



VOL. II. 



great regard for this ugly fish, as it is an 

 enemy to dog-fish, the bodies of those fierce 

 and voracious animals being often found in its 

 stomach ; whenever they take it, therefore, 

 they always set it at liberty. 



The Lump Fish is trifling in size, com- 

 pared to the former ; its length is but sixteen 

 inches, and its weight about four pounds ; the 

 shape of the body is like that of a bream, 

 deep, and it swims edgeways; the back is 

 sharp and elevated, and the belly flat; the 

 lips, mouth, and tongue of this animal, are of 

 a deep red ; the whole skin is rough, with 

 bony knobs; the largest row is along the 

 ridge of the back ; the belly is of a bright 

 crimson colour : but what makes the chief 

 singularity in this fish, is an oval aperture in 

 the belly, surrounded with a fleshy soft sub- 

 stance that seems bearded all round ; by 

 means of this part it adheres with vast force 

 to any thing it pleases. If flung into a pail 

 of water, it will stick so close to the bottom, 

 that on taking the fish by the tail, one may 

 lift up pail and all, though it holds several 

 gallons of water. Great numbers of these 

 fish are found along the coasts of Greenland 

 in the beginning of summer, where they 

 resort to spawn. Their roe is remarkably 

 large, and the Greenlanders boil it to a pulp 

 for eating. They are extremely fat, but not 

 admired in England, being both flabby and 

 insipid. 



The Sea Snail takes its name from the soft 

 and unctuous texture of its body, resembling 

 the snail upon land. It is almost transparent, 

 and soon dissolves and melts away. It is but 

 a little animal, being not above five inches 



bulter, or deep-sea line ; and the fact this implies of its 

 mounting to the surface is further confirmed by the evi- 

 dence of sailors and fishermen, who have seen it floating, 

 and taken it with a line at mid-water. These fishes 

 sometimes abound, and a fisherman who informed me 

 of the circumstance found seven of them at one time 

 on the deck of a trawl-boat : on expressing his surprise 

 at the number, he was told that it was not uncommon 

 to take a dozen at once." Couch. 



" When this fish is taken in a net, its captivity does 

 not destroy its rapacious appetite, but it generally de- 

 vours some of its fellow-prisoners, which have been 

 taken from the stomach alive, especially flounders. It 

 is not so much sought after for its own flesh, as for the 

 fish generally to be found in its stomach: thus, though 

 the fishermen reject the fish itself they do not reject 

 those that the fish has collected." 



" A female examined measured three feet three 

 inches, the breadth across the body at the pectoral fins 

 fifteen inches. Within the teeth, on the lower jaw, is a 

 loose skin of a brown colour, like the back of the fish, 

 forming a sort of bag, which probably assists in prevent- 

 ing the escape of its smaller prey. A male examined 

 was three feet five inches long. When this fish was 

 suspended by the head, the contents of its stomach were 

 readily seen, and I perceived several cuttle-fish. The 

 sexes are distinctly marked by external appendages, as 

 iu some species of Raia" Montagu. 



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