592 
THE OCEAN WORLD. 
given signal the boats rush on to attack them with the harpoons 
(Fig. 392). During this fishery the sailors sing a peculiar melody, 
but without words. 
The family of Pecliculate Pectorals is so named from the fishes of 
which it is composed bearing their pectoral fins on a species of arm 
which forms a prolongation of the carp bone ; it includes the Frog* 
fish, remarkable for the excessive circumference of the head and 
shoulders as compared to the rest of the body, the immense opening 
of a jaw, armed with pointed teeth, and the cutaneous jagged stripes 
Fig. 392. Fishing for Sword-tisli in the Straits of Messina. 
of various lengths with which it bristles at many points. Its skin 
is soft, smooth, and without scales or other asperities ; the members 
which support the pectorals, and other peculiarities, combine to 
render it a hideous and forbidding object, well calculated in ignorant 
and superstitious times to frighten the multitude. I he remains 
of this fish, prepared in such a manner as to be transparent 
and rendered luminous by a lamp enclosed in its interior, has 
often helped to deceive and frighten the timid by its fantastic 
appearance. 
A 
