37 8 SPINY-FINNED GROUP. 



in a species from the Pacific coast of Panama, described under the name of 

 Thalassophryne, in which it is stated to be as perfect as in the venomous snakes. 

 In this fish each opercular bone terminates in a long spine similar to those of the 

 dorsal fin ; these spines being perforated by a canal having an aperture at their 

 base and summit. This canal communicates with a sac containing the poisonous 

 secretion, which can be made to flow out through the spine by pressure. 



Angler-Fish and their Allies, — Family Lophiid^-e. 



Passing over one very unimportant family, our next representatives of the 

 group under consideration are the angler-fish and their allies ; a family remarkable 

 for their extreme ugliness and strange forms. Possessing the group-characters 

 already noticed, they are specially distinguished by having the spinous dorsal fin 

 placed far forwards on the head, and generally modified more or less completely 

 into tentacles, although it may be represented by isolated spines. The head and 

 fore-part of the body are of enormous relative size, and the teeth in the capacious 

 mouth are either villi form or rasp-like. When present, the pelvic fins consist of 

 four or five soft rays ; and the pectorals are supported by a prolongation of some 

 of the superior bones. The gill -opening is reduced to a small aperture situated 

 near the pectoral fin ; and the gills themselves are either two and a half or three 

 and a half in number, false gills being generally absent. These fish are distributed 

 over all seas. Dr. Gtinther writes that " the habits of all are equally sluggish and 

 inactive ; they are very bad swimmers ; those found near the coasts lie on the 

 bottom of the sea, holding on with their arm-like pectoral fins to seaweeds or 

 stones, between which they are hidden ; those of pelagic habits attach themselves 

 to floating seaweed or other objects, and are at the mercy of wind and current." 

 A large proportion of the genera have, therefore, found their way to the greatest 

 depths of the ocean, retaining all the characteristics of their surface-ancestors, 

 but assuming the modifications by which they live in abysmal depths. 



The small number of species constituting the typical genus 

 (Lophius) of the family include its ugliest representatives, among 

 these being the British angler-fish (L. p>iscatorius), which also rejoices in the titles 

 of fishing-frog, frog-fish, or sea-devil. Its leading characters are to be found in 

 the enormous size of the broad, depressed, and rounded head, near the middle of 

 the upper surface of which are situated the small eyes ; and the great width of the 

 cleft of the mouth, which looks like a yawning chasm. Both the jaws and palate 

 are armed with rasp-like teeth of unequal size, capable of being raised and 

 depressed at the will of their owner. The body is naked ; the first three spines 

 of the dorsal fin form long tentacles on the head, and the next three are con- 

 nected ; the soft dorsal and anal fins being of small length. Young specimens are 

 exceedingly unlike their parents, having the head smaller, the tentacles branched, 

 and most of the rays of the fins produced into long filaments. The whole of the 

 few known forms are coast-haunting fishes, the common species ranging from 

 the European and South African seas to those of the western side of North 

 America ; while a second is found in the Mediterranean, a third in Chinese and 

 Japanese waters, and a fourth in those of the Admiralty Islands. In the British 



