OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 23 



Family VII. — Angler Fishes {Pediculati). 



The head and anterior region of the body of abnormal 

 size ; teeth relatively minute, villiform or cardiform ; the 

 gill-opening reduced to a small foramen situated in or near 

 the axilla ; the spinous dorsal fin developed far forward, 

 represented by a few isolated spines only, which frequently 

 present the appearance of tentacles ; the carpal-bones at 

 the base of the pectoral fin prolonged in an arm-like manner. 

 The surface of the skin scaleless, or armed only with small 

 scattered spines or tubercles ; branchiostegal rays five or six 

 in number ; an air-bladder present or absent. 



■"" ■■" ■'•■ ^ ~ ■ ; ~ iFS$k 



FIG. 5. — angler (Lophius piscatoHus). 



The well-known Angler, Fishing-Frog, Sea-Devil or Toad- 

 fish as it is variously called {Lophius piscatorius), No. 31, 

 is the only British representative of the remarkable 

 group of fishes distinguished by the title of the Pediculati. 

 The singular conformation of the bones of the fore-limbs 

 — corresponding with those of our wrists — convert these 

 structures as a whole, which in ordinary fishes remain 

 as simple fins, into leg-like organs, with which the fish can 

 creep slowly about at the bottom of the sea, while some of 

 the foreign forms, genus Antennarius, familiarly known as 

 Walking-fishes, actually perambulate the shore when the tide 

 goes down in search of food. Scarcely less extraordinary 



