ANGLER. 
209 
near the surface, he threw his boat’s iron grapnel at the fish, 
but, not terrified with the blow, it turned and seized the object 
as it sunk. A struggle again was observed at the surface, 
and on the approach of a boat it was found to proceed from 
an Angler in its efforts to swallow a gull, which it seems to 
have laid hold of as it was floating on the surface. The fish 
measured three feet in length, and had so far swallowed the 
bird, which was found to be the Lams argentatas, and which 
measured almost four feet six inches across from wing to 
wing, as that the stomach and gullet were filled, while the 
feet, tail, and ends of the wings projected from the mouth.. 
The fish had become choked with the struggles of its prey, 
and they together now form a portion of a local museum. An 
Angler was seen to have seized a bird called the northern 
diver, Colymhus gracialis; but after a long and earnest struggle 
both the combatants were secured by a fisherman. And, 
however difficult it may be to imagine how it can happen 
that such an apparently unwieldy fish has been able to lay 
hold of the active birds and fishes we have mentioned, some 
portion of the difficulty will disappear Avlien we know that in 
addition to the width of gape and stealthiness of approach, by 
a particular construction of the uppermost portion of the chain 
of vertebrae, by which a distance is preserved between the 
upper processes of those bones nearest the head and the head 
itself, the head may be lifted without any motion of the body; 
which is contrary to what takes place in the generality of 
fishes. 
As another proof that the Angler sometimes seeks its prey 
at mid-water a fisherman had hooked a Codfish, and while 
drawing it up, he felt a heavier weight attach itself to his 
line; this proved to be an Angler of large size, which he 
compelled to quit its hold, as it grasped its prey across the 
mouth, by a heavy blow on the head, and the Codfish still 
remained attached to the hook. In another instance an Angler 
seized a Conger that had taken the hook, but after the last- 
named fish had been engulphed within the cavern of the 
mouth, and perhaps the stomach, it struggled through the 
aperture of the gills, and in that situation both the fishes 
were drawn up together. How indiscriminately these fishes 
feed on each other appears from the fact that in the stomach 
VOL. II. ^ 
