INSTINCTS AND EMOTIONS TN FISH. 53 



summers swimming, sometimes even to the number of twenty or 

 more, but generally much fewer." 



It can scarcely be denied that some fishes are endowed with a 

 certain amount of intelligence : thus flat fishes, Pleuronectidse, 

 conceal themselves beneath the sand, as, owing to their shape, but 

 little is required to cover them ; consequently by setting up an 

 undulating body movement, this is easily effected. Skates and 

 Eays similarly conceal themselves in the sand. The Sand-Launce 

 (Ammodytes lanceolatus and A. tobianus), commonly frequenting our 

 coasts, lies imbedded in the sand, in which it conceals itself at the 

 depth of about afoot, with its body rolled into a spiral form*. The 

 Stargazer (ZTranoscopus scaber) chiefly frequents shallows, where 

 it remains hidden in the mud with merely its head exposed. In 

 this situation it waves the beards of its lips, and especially the 

 long cirrus of its mouth, in various directions, thus allowing the 

 smaller fishes and marine insects which may happen to be swim- 

 ming near, and which mistake these organs for worms, to become 

 instantly seized by their concealed enemy. I obtained in March 

 1868 at Madras a living example of a fish belonging to this family 

 (Ichthy scopus inermis), the Tamil name of which signified " a diver 

 into the mud." It was placed in an aquarium which possessed 

 a bed of mud, into which it rapidly worked itself, first depressing 

 one side and then the other, until merely the top of its head and 

 snout remained above the mud, while a constant current of water 

 was kept up through its gills. While in the mud it resembled a 

 frog ; if lifted out of the aquarium, it ejected water from its 

 mouth to some distance, making a curious noise, half croaking 

 and half snapping f. An Indian freshwater Siluroid (Chaca 

 lophioides) conceals itself among the mud, from which, by its lurid 

 appearance and a number of loose filamentous substances on its 

 skin, it is scarcely distinguishable ; and with its immense open 

 mouth it is ready to seize any small prey that is passing along %. 

 The Angler, or Fishing-Frog (Lophius piscatorius), crouch- 

 ing close to the ground, by the action of its ventral and pectoral 

 fins stirs up the sand and mud ; hidden by the obscurity thus 

 produced, it elevates its appendages (situated on the upper sur- 

 face of its head), moves them in various directions by way of 

 attraction as a bait, and the small fishes approaching either to 



* Shaw, Zool. iv. p. 81. 



t Day, « Fishes of India,' p. 261. 



| Ham. Buch. 'Fish. Ganges.' 



