GOBIES. LOPHIADJ3, OR ANGLERS. 39 



nies, near the shore, and prefer a clayey bottom, in which they 

 excavate canals, wherein they pass the winter. In spring, they 

 prepare a sort of nest, with sea- weed ; in which the young (often 

 produced alive, as in the Blennies) are protected; and the 

 parents exert themselves considerably to bring them food and to 

 defend them from their enemies. Several species of Goby exist 

 in the European seas ; but none of them are of much size, or of 

 any direct value to Man. In other seas numerous genera exist, 

 more or less allied to the Gobies of our own coasts. 



564. There are certain spiny-finned Fishes, in which the 

 carpal bones are so elongated, as to form a sort of arm or wrist, 

 to the extremity of which the pectoral fin is articulated. This 

 conformation (an approach to which is seen among some of the 

 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 others of a very extraordinary nature, the family 

 may be designated as that of LOPHIAD^J, 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 appen- 

 dages ; 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 



