FAMILY LOPHIID.E; FISHING FROG. 61 



Gobies) gives to the Fishes which possess it a very strange 

 appearance ; and enables them, in some instances, to leap up 

 suddenly in the water, and seize the prey which they observe 

 above them ; in other cases to leap over the mud, somewhat 

 after the manner of Frogs. From the very peculiar genus 

 Lophius, or Fishing Frog, in which this character is combined 

 with some offiers of a very extraordinary nature, the family 

 may be designated as that of LOPHIID^E, or Anglers. The com- 

 mon Angler of our own coasts has an enormous flattened head, 

 which constitutes the chief bulk of the Fish ; and a tail so com- 

 pressed on each side, that the creature seems composed of little 

 else than head and tail. On the former, in front of the eyes, 

 are two long rays or filaments of a horny substance ; and there 

 are also four others of a similar nature, but shorter, on the head. 

 The mouth also is furnished with numerous worm-like append- 

 ages ; which seem to represent the tentacula or prolonged lips 

 of many Invertebrated animals. This animal is described as 

 concealing itself amongst marine plants, or behind hillocks of 

 sand, rocks, and stones ; when it opens its great mouth and 

 attracts small fishes as they swim past, by giving a wriggling 

 motion to the appendages just mentioned, which causes them to 

 mistake these for worms ; so that, in attempting to seize them, 

 they fall an easy prey to their subtle and voracious enemy, 

 being speedily engulfed between its enormous jaws. The 

 hideous appearance of its monstrous and constantly-open mouth, 

 well armed with teeth, has gained for the Angler ,the vulgar 

 name of Sea Devil. There are few parts of the British shores 

 where it is not to be occasionally met with ; and when captured 

 in nets along with other fishes, it speedily begins to swallow its 

 companions. On some coasts it is sought for, on account of the 

 live fish in its stomach. In the Museum of the College of Sur- 

 geons in Dublin, there is a skeleton of an Angler, about two feet 

 and a half in length, in the stomach of which is the skeleton of 

 a Cod. two feet long, in whose stomach again are contained 

 the skeletons of two Whitings of the ordinary size, and in the 

 stomach of each Whiting there lay, when it was first examined, 

 numerous half-digested little fishes, which were, however, too 



