FOREST AND STREAM. 
,[Aug. 5, 1905. 
114 
ing features that first attracted notice in this specimen 
was the xemarkable likeness of the animal’s head to a 
mass of rugged rock— the irregular outline formed by 
the prominent ridges of its upper surface, and the _ ex- 
cessive projection of the massive lower jaw, especially 
favoring this simile. Following up the idea still far- 
ther, the illusion was found to be carried out to an ex- 
tent altogether marvelous tO’ contemplate. This promi- 
nent lower jaw in itself formed a natural rocky ledge 
springing from the parent mass. Along its lower margin 
are dependent, in the most highly developed state, those 
singular lobulate processes which extend in a straight 
line backward to the creature’s tail. The size and shape 
of these processes vary considerably, though generally 
following a more or less leaf-like contour, and one be- 
tween every two or three being much longer than its 
neighbor. As far as I am aware, no attempt has yet 
been made to explain ibe purpose or function of ibese 
appendages ; but to one accustomed to hunting for marine 
treasures at low tide on a rocky coast line, their resem- 
blance to the small flat calcareous sponges, ascidians, 
zoophytes, and other low invertebrate organisms which 
fringe the lower margin of every conspicuous ledge, is 
strikingly suggestive. The next point we arrive at is 
the wonderful apparatus upon its head, with which the 
animal has been supposed to lure on its prey to destruc- 
tion. It consists of twO' erectile filaments, the foremost 
of which is produced at its extremity into a membranous 
digitiform expansion. Accordihg to the books, this ex- 
panded membrane owes its especial attractive qualities as 
a bait to fish in its vicinity to the glittering metallic colors 
which play upon its surface. As far as I can ascertain, 
however, by both personal observation and that of others, 
iw such distinctive coloring really exists, the membrane 
sharing the sombre hues of the general surface of the 
body. Following out our rock simile, these organs yield 
another point remarkably favorable thereto; the fore- 
most filament, with its digitiform membrane, is the fac- 
simile of a young frond of oar-weed in both shape and 
color ; and in the tendril behind it we have a repetition 
of the same with the blade of the frond, as it were, 
worn away by the current of the ocean. Our rock, how- 
ever, is not yet clothed with all the growths that con- 
tribute to perfect its mimicry of nature ; for where we 
least expect it — that is, in the animal’s eye — we find the 
most extraordinary mimicry of all. These organs are 
very large and prominent, the iris being conical in shape, 
of a yellow ground color, with longitudinal stripes of a 
darker shade, while the pupil, commencing abruptly at 
the summit, is of so jetty a hue that the aspect of the 
whole is that of a hollow truncated cone, resembling, 
with its longitudinal stripes, the deserted shell of an 
acorn barnacle, and with an amount of exactness that is 
apparent to the most ordinary observer. We have here 
in this fish, then, the most perfect possible embodiment 
of a rocky bowlder, with is associated animal and vege- 
table growths. Lying prone at the bottom of the ocean 
among ordinary rocks and debris, it might well pass 
muster as an inanimate object, and the other fish on 
which it preys would approach it with impunity, and 
never discover their mistake until too late to escape from 
its merciless jaws. Ensconce the animal snugly, however, 
in the crevice of some precipitous submarine cliff, and 
the illusion is more perfectly complete. No strategy 
need now be exerted by the voracious fish to attract his 
prey; he has only to lie close and quiet, letting his ten- 
drils sway to and fro in the passing current like the 
weeds around him, and the shoals will approach, brows- 
ing the vegetation, or pursuing their crustaceous diet 
right into his very mouth. And that such surroundings 
as the foregoing are most congenial to the angler’s tastes 
is abundantly evinced by the habit of the specimen in the 
Manchester Aquarium. Fie is ever slinking off to the 
rock work, and establishing himself so slosely in some 
snug corner that it requires notwithstanding his large 
size, a considerable amount of diligent search to detect 
him.” 
Conceding the perfect aptness of Kent’s remarks, the 
story is yet only half told. There can be little question 
that the foremost spine of the angler, with its leaf-like 
or worm-like appendages, does really attract fishes, in 
so far as they are moved by curiosity at least to approach 
so near that the angler can leap upon them and engulf 
them in its capacious mouth. Two thousand years ago 
and more the adaptation for concealment as well as for 
capture, by attracting other fishes, was recognized by 
naturalists and philosophers. Cicero of old, in his work 
on natural theology, looking at one side only of the ques- 
tion, called attention to the ability of the angler (or sea 
frog as he called it) tO' conceal itself and yet attract 
other fishes for its consumption.:!; Could those other 
fishes be heard, they would tell a story against provi- 
dential interference ! 
Not long after the observations made by Kent in Eng- 
land, even better ones were made by the German natur- 
alist, Schmidtlein, on invididuals kept in captivity in 
aquaria at the zoological station of Naples. His ac- 
count is here translated from the original German : 
, “Lophius embodies, so to speak, a living angling ap- 
paratus. Unfortunately there is not much to record con- 
cerning its habits in capitivity that might be considered 
as a contribution to the already known characters, for it 
is so peculiarly adapted for its dark mud-bottom, that 
it can never endure the confinement in our bright, well- 
lighted prisons with the clean sand for more than a few 
days. It lies for the most part on the bottom in perfect 
apathy without burying itself in the sand, and stares 
with its big dull, glazed eyes straight before it, while 
the jaws of the enormous mouth open a little and close 
at every breath, and the lobed barbels on the chin swing 
back ,and forth. At times it raises the ‘hOoks’ on the 
head and lets the terminal lappets play, or it yawns and 
changes the color of its dull mud dress into a lighter or 
darker shade. It never takes any food either voluntarily 
or by for.ce. If it is made to feed it will spit out the 
morsel again. Before death the skin of the tail general- 
ly peels off, and the tail putrefies from the point up- 
wards. The sea-devil attains considerable .size, and the 
aquarium several times possessed specimens . more than 
a meter in length; the latter, however, could not survive 
even as long as the smaller fishes.” 
tRan;e auteiii marinae dicuntur obmere sese arena solere, et 
moveri prope aquam, ad quas, quasi ad escam, pisces cum 
acesserint, confici a ramis, atque consumi. De Natura Deorum, 
1 , 49 . 
As_ one of the popular names, allmouth, indicates, the 
fish_ is well fitted to ingest food, and its instinct is co- 
ordinate with its capacity. It is, in fact, a most vora- 
cious carnivorous animal, and, so far at least as flesh is 
concerned, omnivorous. It is indiscriminate, too, for in 
Massachusetts some “annoy the fishermen by swallowing 
the wooden buoys attached to the lobster pots,” and a 
man “caught one by using his boat-anchor for a hook.” 
A bottom fish, it naturally feeds largely on fishes living 
on or near the bottom, such as flatfishes, gurnards, scul- 
pins, sea-ravens, dogfishes and small rays, as well as 
crabs, lobsters, squids and starfishes. Impartiality in ac- 
cepting what offers itself was manifest in one from which 
Buckland took “two marysoles, one common sole, one 
piked dogfish, one foot six inches long, three moderate- 
sized crabs, fourteen five-fingers, and one whiting.” Ob- 
servations were made on three Massachusetts individuals 
taken in 1897 and 1899 and recorded by Edwin Linton 
(.1901). _C>ne “had in its stomach a large quantity of 
mud which was rich in mollusca, annehds and small 
crustaceans.” Another, “a small specimen, had in its 
stomach a winter flounder almost as large as itself.” A 
third had “fragments of fish.” The first observation is 
of unusual interest as an evidence of what the fish may 
do when unsuccessful in securing larger prey. 
Its search for food is by no means restricted to- the 
bottom, however, for though a slow and clumsy swim- 
mer, by stealthy approach it succeeds in surprising not 
only active fishes, but even birds and mammals swim- 
ming on the surface. According to R. Q. Couch (1847), 
in Cornwall, it also, “frequently rises to the surface of 
the water in the summer and autumn, and lies basking 
in the sun.” 
Its success in capturing large birds swimming on the 
surface, is commemorated in a name most in vogue along 
some parts of the coast (goosefish) ; several “have been 
known to swallow live geese.” A fisherman told G. 
Brown Goode that “he once saw a struggle in the water, 
and found that a goosefish had swallowed the head and 
neck of a large loon, which had pulled it to the surface 
and was trying to escape. There is authentic record of 
seven wild ducks having been taken from the stomach of 
one of them. Slyly approaching from below, they seize 
birds as they float upon the surface.” 
A number of analogous instances of capture of birds 
might be given. Birds quite as large as. a goose have 
been taken, such as the loon and gull (LarM.f argentatus) . 
Reliable Cape Cod fishermen. Captains Nathaniel E. At- 
wood and 'Nathaniel Blanchard, assured Dr. D. H. Storer 
that “when opened, entire seafowl such as large gulls, 
are frequently found in their stomachs, which they sup- 
posed them to catch in the night, when they are floating 
upon the surface of the water.” Storer was also “in- 
formed by Captain Leonard West, of Chilmark, that he 
had known a goosefish to be taken having in its stomach 
six coots in a fresh condition. These he considered to 
have been swallowed when they had been diving to the 
bottom in search of food.” 
By far the most valuable studies of the food of the 
angler were made by T. Wemyss Fulton and published 
in 1903. No less than “541 anglers of various sizes, 
caught mostly in the Moray Firth, Aberdeen Bay, and 
the deep waters of the Shetlands were examined.” Ful- 
ton’s studies were for the purpose of ascertaining “the 
amount of destruction caused by this species among the 
food fishes.” It appears that, “so far as the anglers in- 
vestigated” were concerned, “the principal food consisted 
of whitings, sand eels, haddocks and common dabs, and 
in smaller amount of herrings, solenettes and others.” 
The “proportions differ on the different grounds, and 
at different seasons.” A noteworthy circumstance is that 
“the great majority of the fishes found in the stomachs 
were small, even when the angler was large.” The rarity 
of large fishes was supposed by Fulton to point “to their 
greater caution than when younger.” Besides fishes “the 
only other organisms found in the stomachs were a 
shore crab in one and a swimming crab in another, and 
cephalopods in thirteen.” 
Another noteworthy characteristic of the angler is the 
tenacity with -wTich it holds on to what it has seized. A 
couple of anecdotes told by Jonatlian Couch (1862) will 
illustrate. “Mr. Thompson, of Belfast, records an in- 
stance where a gentleman discovered an angler near the 
shore, and presented the butt end of his whip to it, when 
it seized and held by it until it was thus drawn on shore. 
An angler of large size was also discovered in shallow 
water by a couple of boys who were in a boat, where 
they happened to be without oars. But with the inten- 
tion, perhaps, of annoying the fish, they loosened a board 
that lay along the bottom of the boat and thrust it with- 
in the creature’s expanded jaws, which immediately 
closed upon it. A struggle then commenced, but so firm- 
ly did the fish retain its grasp that it suffered itself to 
be dragged out of the water and secured.” 
Another feature of the fish is the slowness of its di- 
gestive powers. Couch has also aptly illustrated this 
characteristic, where the angler’s skill was utilized by 
other fishers. “On one occasion there were found in the 
stomach of an angler nearly three-quarters of a hundred 
herrings ; and so little had they suffered change that -they 
^vere sold by the fisherman in the market without any 
suspicion in the buyer of the manner in which they had 
been obtained. In another instance there were taken 
from the stomach twenty-one flounders and a dory, all 
of them of sufficient size and sufficiently uninjured to 
make a good appearance in the market where they were 
sold.” Still more apt evidence of the slowness of diges- 
tion has been given by James T. Linsley^( 1844) . A large 
angler (three feet eight inches long), caught near Bridge- 
])ort. Conn., “continued alive out of water about twenty- 
four hours,” and when cut open, Linsley “took from its 
stomach subsequently, a large half pailfull of fishes, of 
various species, such as tomcods, dinners, bass-fry, etc. ; 
of the latter, some were as perfect as when swallowed, 
notwithstanding the lapse of time mentioned.” 
Fishing for Trout at the Cold Water 
The stream that I have fished for trout for the last 
twenty-five years has been fished by my father for more 
than fifty years. When he_ began to fish the stream 
its banks were covered with a dense growth of pine 
and hemlock and its waters kept cool through the 
greater part of the summer. He tells of catching trout 
on the riffles with bait in harvest time. But the saw- 
mills and the tanneries have stripped its mountain 
sides of everything, but the hard-wood, and during my 
time the trout^ have been compelled to seek the mouths 
of the mountain brooks and the cold springs as summer 
advanced and the sun got high and warm. If the sum- 
mer be a cool and rainy one, the trout may stay on the 
riffles until the middle of June, but the ordinary season 
will drive them to the cold water before the last of May, 
where they will lie in schools of several hundred with 
the smallest trout nearest the spring or the mouth of 
the brook and the big fellows a.way on the outer edge 
in the deepest water. 
1 rout at the Cold Water have certain peculiarities 
They will rise to a fly early in the morning, just .at 
noon, and again late in the evening. I have always 
suspected that the shadow of the rod on the water had 
something to do with this. Then if there has been a 
small flood in the stream, roiling the water, the trout 
will rise greedily as soon as the water clears again. 
Nessmuk tells in “Woodcraft” of goinar with a successful 
angler to a spring hole in a lake and seeing him drive 
trout out into deep water and then stir up the mud 
and catch them as they returned to the springs. Under 
most circumstances, not more than three or four trout 
can be caught at one time; the water must then be 
rested and then fished again. A native angler whom I 
knew lived near the mouth of a mountain run where 
a large number of trout collected each summer. In the 
proper season this man would go to the run ten or 
tvvelve times a day, catching two or three trout at each 
trip. Sometimes after trout have been fished over at 
such a place for several days, they refused to pay at- 
tention to fly or bait of any sort, probably doing their 
feeding at night, if feeding at all. They also grow ac- 
customed at such times to the angler and stir, only 
when he makes some sudden or violent movement. An 
acquaintance of mine once caught a very large trout 
lying in a cold pool by baiting with a crawfish and 
slapping it on the water with a splash. The trout had 
not stirred until the bait struck the water and then it 
rushed rapidly around the pool several times and with- 
out stopping its speed darted forward, took the bait 
and was hooked. _ This coincides with my own experi- 
ence at several different times. I was once watching 
Angler (Chirolophius naresii). 
