OSSEOUS FISHES. 



605 



and rendered luminous by a lamp enclosed in its interior, has 

 often helped to deceive and frighten the timid by its fantastic 

 appearance. 



The Frog-fish, Lophius piscatorius Linn. (Fig. SGI), which 



Fig. 394. The Frog-fish (Lophius piscatorius). 



attains the length of five or six feet, lives in the sand, or sunk in the 

 mud, leaving the long and movable filaments with which the head is 

 furnished to float in the water ; the shreds which terminate them act 

 as natural bait when they float about in different directions, from their 

 resemblance to worms and other living creatures. The fishes which 

 swim above them, and which they see very well by the assistance of 

 their two eyes placed on the summit of the head, are attracted by 

 these deceitful decoys. When the prey arrives near to the enormous 

 jaws, which are almost always wide open, it is engulfed and torn to 

 pieces by its strongly-hooked teeth. 



This manner of lying in ambush, and fishing, as it were, with a hook 

 and line for fishes which its conformation does not permit it to pursue, 

 has acquired for it the name of the frog-fish, which is sometimes given 

 to it. It is found more or less in all parts of the Mediterranean and 



