124 NETHER LOCHABER. 



before. We are told that the atherine is very good eating, and we can 

 quite believe it, for it is a pretty, delicate-looking little fish, that, nicely 

 fried until properly crimp and brown, ought to taste well. A much 

 commoner fish, but interesting in this instance for the great size of 

 the specimen, was an angler, fishing-frog, or sea-devil [Lophius 

 piscatorius), which was cast ashore near Corran Ferry last week. 

 This was the largest individual of the species — the ugliest, perhaps, 

 of all fishes — that we ever saw. It measured five feet seven inches 

 from snout to tip of tail, and weighed fifty-three pounds. It was 

 poor and fleshless, and had died seemingly of sheer inanition or 

 atrophy ; had it been in full condition, it would have weighed a 

 third more. Its terrible mouth, with its formidable array of sharp 

 recurved teeth, was enough to scare a friend that accompanied us 

 to a distance, though we assured him that the brute was dead and 

 harmless. On opening out its jaws to a fair extent — that is, as far 

 as we thought the animal itself would open them easily if need 

 were, we placed a large turnip from a pit that was conveniently at 

 hand, a turnip nearly as large as a man's head, easily within the 

 horrid cavern. We would willingly have taken this specimen home 

 with us, for the purpose of preserving the skeleton, but we had no 

 conveyance with us, and any idea of carrying it was out of the 

 question. It had, besides, evidently lain some time on the beach, 

 and its odour on moving it in the least was, the reader may believe, 

 the very antipodes of Eau de Cologne or ottar of roses. We con- 

 tented ourselves therefore with slitting open its stomach with our 

 pocket-knife, and found it, as we expected, perfectly empty, con- 

 taining nothing in the shape of food, except the tips of two claws 

 and small bits of the carapace of a not uncommon species of crab, 

 the velvet fiddler [Portunas puber). The Highlanders of the 

 west coast and Hebrides call the angler Mac Ldmhaich, properly 

 Mac Lathaich — the son (that is, inhabitant) of the mud or ooze ; a 

 very expressive and appropriate name for it, for it is essentially a 



