TION. 



160 COMMON ANGLER. Class IV. 



resembling that animal in a tadpole state. 

 Pliny takes notice of the artifice used by it to 

 take its prey : Eminentia sub oculis 'cornicula 

 turbato limo ewerit, assultantes pisciculos attra- 

 hens, donee tarn prope accedant, ut assiliat. 

 " It puts forth the slender horns it has beneath 

 " its eyes, enticing, by that means, the little 

 11 fish to play round, till they come within 

 " reach, when it springs on them."* 

 Descrip- The fishing frog grows to a large size, some 

 being between four and five feet in length; and 

 we have heard of one taken near Scarborough, 

 whose mouth was a yard wide. The fishermen 

 on that coast have a great regard for this fish, 

 from a supposition that it is a great enemy to 

 the dog fish, j" and whenever they take it with 

 their lines set it at liberty. 



It is of very great deformity ; the head is 

 much bigger than the whole body, round at the 

 circumference, and flat above ; the mouth of a 

 prodigious wideness ; the under jaw is much 



* Cicero, in his second book De Natura Deorum, gives 

 much tl z same account of this fish : Ranee autem marinas di- 

 cuntur obruere sese arena solere, et moveri prope aquam, ad quas, 

 quasi ad csca7n, pisces cum accesserint, confici a ranis, atque 

 consumi. 



f The bodies of these fierce and voracious fish are often found 

 in its stomach. 



