Marvels of the Universe 



91 



cover of silk plush, finished after the fashion of the old beaver, but showing an infinitely smoother 

 and more glossy surface. 



\Mien France had the monopoly of the Canadian fur trade, the export of beaver skins attained 

 enormous dimensions, the number of skins received at La Rochelle in the year 1743 being no less 

 than one hundred and twenty-seven thousand and eighty. Despite continued persecution of the 

 animal in the intervening years, the numbers showed no very great falling off a century and a half 

 later, the Hudson Bay Company having sold sixty three thousand four hundred and nineteen skins in 

 January, 1891. 



Beaver skins, which may be used either with or without the long outer " water " hairs, are dyed 

 black or browTi, and sometimes furnished with white hairs to imitate the valuable sea-otter. They 

 are usually employed for trimmings, cuffs, or muffs, according to the fashion of the day. 



AN INFANT ANGLER. 



Like most other Bshes the Angler leaves the egg with a very different form from that of its adult stage. Note the 

 remarltable length of the bones of the breast-fins, which later become short and paddle-like. 



THE FISH THAT FISHES 



BY EDWARD STEP, F.L.S. 



The Angler, or Fishing-frog, is one of the most remarkable of our fishes. Built more on the hues of 

 a tadpole than a fish, two-thirds of its length (not reckoning the tail-fin) consists of head and mouth, 

 and the remainder is so narrow in comparison that it is not to be wondered that it is regardet;! as 

 mere tail. What has always been considered the most remarkable point in its structure is the 

 possession of several long rod-like bones, which stand up on the upper surface of the head. To one 

 of these is attached naturally a strip of skin-like substance which the imaginative naturalists of half 

 a century and more ago described as worm-like and glittering. The Angler was said to manipulate 

 this rod in so skilful a way that the appendage was as good as the artificial minnow which the human 

 angler spins for the snaring of real fishes. The description was copied from book to book as the 

 custom was — and still is to some extent — and nobody appears to have taken the trouble to look 

 at a living Angler-fish to see how far description and fact agreed. There is really no need for 

 invention in the matter. 



A glance at the photographs will show that the Angler is not built on clipper lines. It would be 

 impossible for him either to escape from an enemy or to secure his dinner by virtue of swift going 

 in the water ; his lines are more those of the round-bowed barge. So the Angler has taken to a 

 sedentary life on a weedy sea-bottom, where he can hide the greater part of him among the weeds 



