FISHES. 



295 



The common angler, Lophius piscatorius, is better known along the New England 

 coast as goose-fish or monk-fish. It is found occasionally as far south as Chesapeake 

 Bay, or even Cape Lookout, but is exceptional there, or at least confined to deep 

 water, for the fishermen do not generally know it. In its noi-thern range, hoTTever, 

 and along the coast of New England, it is abundant, and may be found from the shoal 

 waters to a depth of three hundred fathoms or more, as off Newport, Rhode Island. 

 It has not been detected north of Nova Scotia. With its enormous mouth, which 

 can only be appreciated by looking into it from the front, it may be easily distin- 

 guished from every Other denizen of the American waters. Some of the numei-ous 

 popular names allude to the size of the mouth and its capacity, such, for example, as 

 'all-mouth,' ' wide-gap,' 'kettle-maw,' and ' wide-gut.' This is also one of those fishes 

 to which has been applied that popular name of English sailors and fishers, 'devil-fish.' 

 The angler is a sluggish animal, generally lurking upon the bottom in the midst of 

 sea-weed, but occasionally it may be seen swimming on the surface. It is an ex- 



Fig. 166. — Malthe vespertilio, bat-fisli. 



tremely voracious fish, and the most common of the American names, 'goose-fish,' 

 alludes to its capacity to master and ingest the well-known bird in its capacious maw. 

 A fisherman told Mr. Goode that " he once saw a struggle in the water, and found 

 that a goose-fish had swallowed the head and neck of a large loon, which had pulled 

 it to the surface, and was trying to escape. There is authentic record of seven wild 

 ducks having been taken from the stomach of one of them. Slyly approaching from 

 below, they seize birds as they float upon the surface." 



The angler or goose-fish spawns in summer along the eastern American coast, and 

 the result of its labor is quite remarkable. " The eggs are very numerous, enclosed 

 in a ribbon-shaped gelatinous mass, about a foot in width and thirty or forty feet 

 long, which floats near the surface. One of these ribbons will weigh perhaps forty 

 pounds, and is usually partially folded together, and visible a foot or eighteen inches 

 from the top of the water, its color being brownish purple. The number of eggs in 

 one of these has been estimated to be from forty to fifty thousand." The growth of 

 the young after exclusion from the egg is rather rapid, and Prof. Goode saw " young 



