I 
i; 
FROG-FISHES. 
179 
! the British Isles, and on the northern shores of 
I Europe. 
Genus Lophius. (Linn.) 
The head in this genus is enormously large 
in proportion to the body, very broad, depressed, 
and spinous in many parts; the mouth is^wide, 
deeply cleft, armed with teeth, differing in size, 
but numerous, sharp and incurved ; the lower 
jaw fringed round with a series of free fleshy fila- 
ments. The tongue is broad; the gill-cavitie^ 
are capacious, but open by a small aperture ; the 
gill-rays are six in number. There are two dor- 
I sals, separated ; the summit of the head is fur- 
; nished with two or three bony filaments, jointed 
I in a peculiar way to the skull, so as to be capable 
of free motion in various directions. Cuvier con- 
siders these as being, structurally, the first spines 
I of the anterior dorsal. In the Angler, or Fish- 
1 ing-frog {Lophius piscatorius, Linn.) of the Bri- 
I tish seas, the motions of these detached rays are 
j very peculiar. Two are considerably in advance 
of the eyes, almost close to the upper lip ; the 
posterior of these is articulated by a stirrup upon 
! the ridge of the base, but the anterior one is 
articulated by a ring at its base, into a solid staple 
of the bone, thus admitting of free motion in 
every direction, without the possibility of dis- 
placement, except in case of absolute fracture. 
The third one, which is on the top of the cra- 
I; nium, behind the eyes, is articulated much in the 
I same manner as the posterior one of the other 
two ; and of course, though these two have con- 
I siderable motion in the mesial plane of the fish. 
