OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 27 



the stones and debris at the bottom of the sea, and to wait 

 for the advent of its unsuspecting prey, which, approaching 

 to browse from what it takes to be a flat rock — differing in 

 no respect from that from off which it obtained the last 

 appetising morsel of weed or worm — finds itself suddenly 

 engulphed beyond recall within the merciless jaws of this 

 marine impostor. The voracity of the Angler is proverbial, 

 the enormous width of its gape and the great elasticity of 

 its integument permitting it to seize and devour fish of other 

 species almost equal to itself in bulk. Of smaller fish no less 

 than three-quarters of a hundred of herrings, and in another 

 instance twenty-one flounders and a John Dory, have been 

 taken from the stomach of a large Angler. When greatly 

 pressed with hunger examples have been known to ascend 

 and seize gulls and other sea-birds floating on the surface 

 of the water, while they not uncommonly gorge the fish 

 already caught on the fisherman's lines. Adult examples 

 of the Angler are reported to attain a length of six or, seven 

 feet, from three to four feet being, however, a more common 

 measurement. In the Buckland Museum will be found the 

 cast of a specimen measuring no less than five feet two 

 inches, while another cast of a smaller fish represents an 

 example captured in the act of swallowing a Bass, scarcely 

 inferior to itself in length, The additional sobriquet of the 

 " Pocket-fish " has been conferred by fishermen upon the 

 Angler, with reference to the pouch-shaped branchial 

 cavities with which the minute gill-opening communicates. 

 Tradition has ascribed to these branchial pouches a variety 

 of functions, one being that they subserved as pockets, 



its prey, is altogether erroneous and impossible ; the species possesses 

 no air-bladder, and unless laboriously engaged in propelling itself 

 through the water with its caudal fin, sinks helplessly to the bottom. 



