Defer, 
94 COMMON FISHING FROG. Clafs IV. 
“jittle fifh to play round, till they come within 
‘* reach, when it {fprings on them*, 
The fifhing frog grows to a large fize, fome be- 
ing between four and five feet in length; and we 
have heard of one taken near Scarborough, whofe 
mouth was a yard wide. The fifhermen on that- 
coaft have a great regard for this fith, from a fup- 
pofition that it is a great enemy to the dog fifh**, 
and whenever they take it with their lines, always fet 
it at liberty. 
It is a fifh of very great deformity : the head is 
much bigger than the whole body, is round at the 
circumference, and flat above : the mouth of a pro- 
digious widenefs. 
The under jaw is much longer than the upper: 
the jaws are full of flender fharp teeth: in the roof 
of the mouth are two or three rows of the fame : 
at the root of the tongue, oppofite each other, are 
two bones of an elliptical form, thick fet, with very 
ftrong fharp teeth. 
The noftrils do not appear externally, but in the 
upper part of the mouth are two large orifices that 
ferve inftead of them. 
On each fide the upper jaw are two fharp fpines, ahd 
others are {cattered about the upper part of the head. 
Immediately above the nofe are two long tough 
filaments, and on the back three others; thefe are 
* Cicero, in his fecond of De Natura Deorum, gives much the 
fame account of this fifhh: Rane autem marine dicuntur obruere 
Jefe arena folere, et moveri prope aquam, ad quas, quafi ad ¢/cam, 
pifces cum accefferint, confici @ ranis, atque confumi. 
** The bodies of thefe fierce and voracious fifh are often 
found in the ftomach of the Fifhing Freg. 
what 
