FISHES THAT CARRY LANTERNS 



SEVERAL years ago this Magazine 

 published a description of the an- 

 gler fish, well known along the 

 New England coast because of a device 

 by means of which it lures and catches 

 other fish.'^ This device consists of fila- 

 ments or tendrils resembling seaweed, 

 which are attached to the head. 



When the angler is hungry it hunts 

 out a convenient place in shallow waters, 

 where its color and markings make the 

 fish indistinguishable from the sea-bot- 

 tom. Here it lies quietly, often as if 



published by the Smithsonian Institution, 

 and from which these notes are obtained. 



The most extraordinary of all the 

 anglers are those that carry lanterns to 

 see with. 



"Some stout-bodied anglers resorted to 

 deep and deeper waters, where the light 

 from the sun was faint or even ceased, 

 and a wonderful provision was at last 

 developed by kindly nature, which re- 

 placed the sun's rays by some reflected 

 from the fish itself. In fact the illicium 

 (a prolongation of the spine) has devel- 



A FISH WITH ITS LANTERN AND BAIT 



This tiny fish was dredged in the Indian Ocean at a depth of more than a mile (7,200 

 feet). The bulb-like upper figure is an enlargement of its torch. The fish is i>4 inches long 

 (excluding the rod and bulb). It swims with the rod and torch pointed straight forward. 



dead, while its floating filaments, kept in 

 motion by the tide, decoy other fish, 

 which never discover their mistake until 

 too late to escape from the angler's mer- 

 ciless jaws. 



This angler fis/ 5 the only one of its 

 kind frequenting the shallow seas of 

 northern Europe and North America, 

 but there are many other related species 

 inhabiting the deep seas of almost all 

 ]jarts of the globe, as well as lurking in 

 the tropical groves and in the sargasso 

 meadows of the Atlantic Ocean. These 

 relatives of the angler are the subject of 

 a bulletin by Theodore Gill. ''Angler 

 Fishes, Their Kinds and Ways," recently 



* See "The Purple Veil," by H. A. Large- 

 lamb, pp. 335-341, National Geographic Mag- 

 azine, 1905. 



iDped into a rod with a bulb having a 

 phosphorescent terminal portion, and the 

 'bait' round it has been also modified 

 .and variously added to ; the fish has also 

 had superadded to its fishing apparatus a 

 lantern and worm-like lures galore. 



"How efficient such an apparatus must 

 be in the dark depths where these angler 

 fishes dwell may be judged from the fact 

 that special laws have been enacted in 

 some countries against the use of torches 

 and other lights for night fishing because 

 of their deadly attractiveness. Not only 

 the curiosity of the little deep-sea fishes, 

 but their appetite is appealed to by the 

 worm-like objects close to or in relief 

 again.st the phosphorescent liulb of the 

 anglers." 



As mav be inferred from the size of 



