358 The Angler. 



sidelong motion is also put in action, by which it appears pos- 

 sible that the angler may be able to swallow a prey equal or 

 nearly so to its own bulk ; to which also a wide gullet can 

 afford a passage, and the stomach a welcome, while the skin of 

 the body is so loose as to allow of any degree of distension with- 

 out inconvenience, and there are no ribs on the sides that might 

 offer a mechanical resistance. ' Nor can the food pass easily out 

 of the stomach into the intestines "without being entirely 

 digested, for the lower or pyloric orifice of that organ is small, 

 and there is reason for supposing that the process of digestion is 

 itself slow. On one occasion there were found in the stomach 

 of an angler nearly three-quarters of a hundred herrings ; and 

 so little had they suffered change that they were sold by the 

 fisherman in the market without any suspicion in the buyer of 

 the manner in which they had been obtained. In another 

 instance there were taken from the stomach twenty-one flounders 

 and a dory, all of them of sufficient size and sufficiently un- 

 injured to make a good appearance in the market where they 

 were sold. 



And how indiscriminately fishes feed on each other appears 

 from the fact, that in the stomach of an angler which measured 

 two feet and a half, was found a codfish that measured two feet; 

 and in the latter were the skeletons of two Avhitings ; within 

 which, again, were other small fishes. 



As this fish has on some occasions displayed a considerable 

 degree of apparently stupid indifference to fear, with remarkable 

 want of caution in avoiding danger, it has been concluded that 

 its powers of perception are in a low degree ; and this opinion 

 is strengthened by noticing the small size of the brain in com- 

 parison with the bulk of the body. It scarcely fills half the 

 chamber of the skull in which it lies ; the remainder of the 

 space being occupied with water, as in other fishes ; and it is 

 even said that this brain is in bulk but little above that of a 

 sparrow. The whole head also is regarded as being in a con- 

 dition of restricted, or arrested development ; for, as in most 

 animals in their embryotic state, the head is proportionally 

 larger in reference to the body than it continues to be in the 

 condition of perfect development, it has been judged that its 

 existence in the magnitude we find it in the angler is a proof 

 of the small development also of its other powers. But the 

 abstract truth cannot be reached by such an analogy, and it is 

 to be questioned whether a comparison of the brain of this fish 

 with that of the sparrow be in any respect a just one. There 

 are in all creatures nerves and portions of the brain which are 

 endued with special sensibility — as that of seeing, hearing, and 

 tasting — but in which the anatomist, with bis microscope, has 

 not yet learnt to discern a different structure from that which 



