HABITS AND LIFE HISTORY OF THE TOADFISH. IO75 



This fish was first described and named {Gadus tau) by Linnaeus from a 

 specimen collected by Doctor Garden, of South Carolina. The earliest figures 

 of the toadfish that I have been able to find are in plate lxvii of Bloch's Atlas 

 to his " Oeconomische Naturgeschichte der Fische Deutschlands," published 

 about 1782. These figures, one a dorsal, the other a lateral view, are very good, 

 the latter especially." 



The first American describer was Doctor Mitchill (181 5), of New York, who 

 allied it with the angler (Lophius) because of its large head adorned with skinny 

 tentacles, and its cavernous mouth. His description is an excellent one. 



Rafinesque in 18 18 describes, under the name of Opsanus cerapalus, a 

 toadfish from the south shore of Long Island. This, he notes, is found spawning 

 along the shores during the summer but is not seen in winter. So far as the 

 present writer knows, the first American ichthyologist to figure this fish was 

 Le Sueur. His drawing, published in 18 19, represents the fish in the attitude 

 of swimming. This admirably drawn and thoroughly characteristic figure has 

 been reproduced in Doctor Gill's (1907) paper, referred to later. 



Le Sueur, following the lead of Mitchill, allies the toadfish, which he calls 

 Batrachoides vernidlas, to Lophius. In another paper the same author (1824), 

 in describing what he thought were two new species of the toadfish, thus justifies 

 the name Batrachoides which he first applied to this fish: 



The nsime Batrachoides * * * isa very appropriate one, inasmuch as the form of the 

 body of these fishes has considerable analogy with the lar\'al or imperfect and exclusively 

 aquatic state of the frog; this similarity exists in the large depressed head and wide 

 mouth, the attenuated body edged with an almost continuous fin above and beneath, 

 and, in fact, a general conformity which at once reminds us of the numerous family of 

 Batrachians that are inhabitants of almost every country. This general resemblance is 

 evident to the common observer and they are known by the name of toadfish to the 

 inhabitants of Salem, Rhode Island, and Egg Harbor, and probably also Carolina.* 



His first specimens were very small, consisting of two individuals of 5^ 

 inches each and one of 2 >^ inches in length. This latter was taken from a living 

 oyster, in which Le Sueur thinks it had taken refuge in alarm at the noise and 

 motion of the oyster tongs. 



In 1842, De Kay, following Cuvier and Valenciennes, gives the name 

 Batrachus tau to the toadfish, but still retains it in the family Lophius. He 



a In Marcgrave's (1648) Historiae Rerum Naturalium Brasiliae, on page 178, there is figured and 

 described a fisli "called Niqui by the Brasilians, and Pietermann by the natives." Both the figure and 

 the description lead me to believe that the fish Marcgrave had was a toadfish. Jordan and Evermann 

 (1898) make no reference to this fish in their description of North American forms. Since, however, 

 in a footnote to page 2315, they refer to certain structures in "the Brazilian genus Marcgravia crypto- 

 centra," one may be allowed to conjecture that this is the fish referred to above. 



6 Hargreaves (1904), writing of the pacuma, Balrachus surmamensis, of Guiana, says. "The head 

 of the pacuma is exactly like that of a huge toad and has much the same color and markings as the 

 common crapaud. " 



