394 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [vo. 48 
in a toadfish aquarium may occasionally be found massed together 
in a regular heap, as close together as possible, in some selected 
corner, some on top of the others. In such positions some may 
remain quite a long time (perhaps an hour even) and most of them 
scarcely move; there will be often some restlessness, nevertheless, 
and from time to time one or more may leave and swim about or 
possibly seek another corner. Generally, however, there are several 
Fic. ro8.—Common toadfish in characteristic posture. After Lesueur. 
(one or more) moving about in another corner. When compelled 
at length to move away from its resting place a fish will progress 
with a wriggling movement, well represented in the accompanying 
figure,t and the soft dorsal fin especially is subjected to a rather 
rapid and regular undulatory action, reminding one of a screw pro- 
peller. If roused by a stick to action, the disturbed fish’s first im- 
pulse is to snap at the offending instrument, and perhaps one in its 
anger may swallow a lot of pebbles, to disgorge when at rest again. 
Most toadfishes are voracious and “almost omnivorous.” The - 
assumption of Giinther (“all of the Batrachoids with obtuse teeth 
in the palate and in the lower jaw feed on mollusca and crusta- 
ceans”’) is only half true. Besides crustaceans, mollusks and worms, 
it preys on such small fishes as it may be able to catch, “ especially 
upon Anchovies and Sand-Smelt.”” Verrill (1871) found that the 
large stomach was “ usually distended with a great variety of food,” 
enumerated various species he had identified, and deduced the propo- 
sition that “the toadfish is, therefore, a fish that should not be 
* The figure of the sinnous toadfish is a reproduction of an illustration pre- 
pared about 1823 by Lesueur, “the Raffaele of zoological painters,” the first 
ichthyological artist of his time. 
