HIGHER LIFE IN WATERS. 93 



neighborhood all other fish, and would, if its powers of 

 locomotion were in accordance with its size, be the terror 

 of the seas to fish smaller than itself ; but Providence 

 knoweth how to temper its gifts, and the lophius is but 

 an indifferent swimmer, and is too clumsy to support a 

 predatory existence by the fleetness of its motions. How, 

 then, is this huge capacity satisfied ? Mark those two 

 elongated tentacles which spring from the creature's nose, 

 and how they taper away like veritable fishing-rods. To 

 the end of them is attached, by a line or a slender fila- 

 ment, a small glittering morsel of membrane. This is the 

 bait. The hooks are set in the mouth of the fisherman 

 down below. But how is the animal to induce the fish to 

 venture within reach of those formidable hooks ? 



6. Now mark this perfect feat of angling. How does 

 the Thames fisherman attract the gudgeons ? They are 

 shy ; be must not let them see him, yet he must draw 

 them to him, and he does it by stirring up the mud upon 

 the bottom. "In that cloud of mud is food," say the 

 gudgeons. Then the angler plies his rod and bait. Just 

 so the lophius proceeds, and he too stirs up the mud with 

 his fins and tail. This serves not only to hide him, but to 

 attract the fish. Then he plies Ms rod, and the glittering 

 bait waves to and fro like a living insect glancing through 

 the turbid water. The gudgeons, or rather gobies, rush 

 toward it. "Beware! beware!" But when did gudgeon 

 attend to warning yet ? Suddenly, up rises the cavernous 

 Nemesis from the cloud below, and " snap !" the gobies are 

 entombed ,in the bag-net, thence to be transferred to the 

 lophius's stomach, when there are enough of them collected 

 to form a satisfactory mouthful. i 



7. The angler-fish is not left entirely undisturbed to 

 carry on his work of destruction. A kind of eel ensconces 

 himself in the branchial sack of the angler and makes it 

 his permanent home, levying a toll upon all food which the 



