300 



THE COMPLETE ANGLEE. 



[PART i. 



And, scholar, do not wonder at this, for, besides the credit 

 of the relator, you are to note, many of these, and fishes, 

 which are of the like, and more unusual shapes, are very 

 often taken on the mouths of our sea-rivers, and on the sea- 

 shore. And this will be no wonder to any that have 

 travelled Egypt ; where 'tis known the famous river Nilus 

 does not only breed fishes that yet want names, but, by the 

 overflowing of that river, and the help of the sun's heat on 

 the fat slime which that river leaves on the banks, when it 

 falls back into its natural channel, such strange fish and 

 beasts are also bred, that no man can give a name to, as 

 Grotius, 1 in his " Sophom," and others, have observed. 



Zeus Opah, a supposed Sea-Anglor. 



But whither am I strayed in this discourse ? I will end 



length, but the usual size is three feet, and not exceeding five. Mr. 

 Yarrell says that when this fish is couching close to the ground, it stirs up 

 the sand or mud by means of its ventral and pectoral fins. Hidden by the 

 obscurity thus produced, it elevates its tentaculse, turns them in various 

 directions by way of attracting as a bait, and the small fishes approaching, 

 either to examine or seize them, immediately become the prey of the 

 angler. The voracity of this fish is very great. There is an instance on 

 record of its engulphing a Conger-eel on the hook of a fisherman, and so 

 being drawn up with it ; and it is said to have swallowed the cork buoy of 

 a ship's deep sea line. Colonel Montague tells us, that while captured in 

 a net it will devour some of its fellow-prisoners. Iii some parts of Scot- 

 land it is called Wide-gape, from the size of its mouth. But see Mr. 

 Yarrell's interesting account, in his " History of British Fishes/' ED. 

 1 Hugo Grotius, a celebrated scholar, statesman, and theologian, was born 



