102 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY 



BATRACHOIDE^E.— LES PECTORALES PEDICULEES. 



This family is composed of monstrous-looking acanthopterygious fish, whose pec- 

 toral fins are supported upon a kind of arm formed of the elongated carpal bones 

 which in some genera perform the functions of hind feet, enabling the fish to creep 

 over sand or mud like small quadrupeds. The ventrals are jugular, and the gill- 

 plates and rays (four, six, or seven) are enveloped in loose skin, which restricts the 

 gill-opening to a small hole. Cutaneous appendages or barbels generally fringe 

 the lips, or whole lower jaw to the pectorals, or even the entire body. The skin, 

 except in some BatracM, is destitute of scales, but is sometimes partially, or even 

 generally, studded with bony tubercles. The skeleton is, for the most part, but 

 imperfectly osseous. The pyloric ceeca, when present, which is rarely, are short, 

 and do not exceed two in number. Some genera have an air-bladder, others want 

 it. In almost all there are two distinct dorsals ; and in Lophius and Chironectes 

 an interspinous bone, lying horizontally forwards on the head, supports several 

 moveable free rays, whose summits are often swelled and fleshy, or even foliated or 

 tufted. Batrachus has a spiny operculum and suboperculum, and a flat head 

 broader than the body, but not very disproportionate in length : its gill-opening is 

 situated before the ventrals, and it has two dorsals, the anterior one being supported 

 by spinous rays. Lophius has a depressed form, and Chironectus a compressed 

 one, and both have monstrously large heads, with a small hole behind the pectorals 

 for an opening to the gills. In Malthe the head is flat, and greatly lengthened 

 laterally by the projection of the large subopercula. Its gills open by a hole 

 above and behind the arms which support the pectorals. 



The Batrachoidese can live long out of the water, in consequence of the small- 

 ness of their gill-openings. The Chironectes, in particular, are able, even in warm 

 countries, to pass two or three days in creeping over the land. All the Batra- 

 choidese conceal themselves in the mud or sand, and lie in wait to take their prey 

 by surprise. Those species which have free rays on the head, with summits 

 resembling worms, are said to move them backwards and forwards for the purpose 

 of enticing small fish within their reach, and hence the name of " fishing-frogs " 

 has been popularly applied to them. The Batrachoideae exist in the Atlantic, 

 Indian and Pacific oceans. Several inhabit the European seas. Lophius pisca- 



