The Angler. 357 



which it seems to have laid hold of as it was floating on the 

 surface. The fish measured three feet in length, and had so 

 far swallowed the bird, which was found to be the Lams argen- 

 tatus, and which measured almost four feet six inches from 

 wing to wing, as that its stomach and gullet were filled, while 

 the feet, tail, and ends of the wings projected from the mouth. 

 The fish had become choked with struggles of its prey, and 

 they together form a portion of a local museum. An angler 

 was seen to have seized a bird called the northern diver — 

 Colymbus Glacialis — but after a long and earnest struggle both 

 the combatants were secured by a fisherman. And, however 

 difficult it may be to imagine how it can happen that such an 

 apparently unwieldy fish has been able to lay hold of the active 

 birds and fishes we have mentioned, some portion of the difficulty 

 will disappear when we know, that in addition to the width of 

 the gape and stealthiness of approach, by a particular con- 

 struction of the uppermost portion of the chain of vertebrge, 

 by which a distance is preserved between the upper processes 

 of these bones close to the head, and the head itself, the head 

 may be lifted without any motion of the body, which is contrary 

 to what takes place in the generality of fishes. 



As another proof that the angler sometimes seeks its prey 

 at midwater, a fisherman had hooked a codfish, and while draw- 

 ing it up he felt a heavier weight attach itself to his line ; this 

 proved to be an angler of large size, which he compelled to 

 quit its hold as it grasped its prey across the mouth, by a heavy 

 blow on the head, and the codfish still remained attached to the 

 hook. In another instance, an angler seized a conger that had 

 taken the hook, but after the last named fish had been engulfed 

 within the cavern of the mouth, and perhaps the stomach, it 

 struggled through the aperture of the gills, and in that situa- 

 tion both the fishes were drawn up together. This fish is all 

 one vast extended mouth, saj^s Oppian, to which we may add 

 by adaptation from our English poet Spenser : — 



" The open mouth that seemed to contain 

 A full good peck within the utmost brain ; 

 All set with dreadful teeth in ranges twain, 

 That terrified his foes and armed him, 

 Appearing like the mouth of orcus ghastly grim." 



The extent of the mouth is indeed formidable, for in an example 

 which measured four feet and a half in length, and weighed 

 seventy-two pounds, this organ measured fourteen inches across ; 

 and this in action is capable of being greatly extended by means 

 of several joints with which these parts are supplied to a larger 

 degree than in most other fishes. In opening the mouth the 

 lower jaw is rather protruded than lowered. The upper jaw also 

 is capable of some degree of protrusion, and in its symphysis a 

 vol. i. — no. v. B B 



