Page:Natural History, Fishes.djvu/190

176 head is large, sometimes enormous; commonly grotesque or hideous in its aspect, armed with singular horn-like processes, or filaments; the eyes small, placed near the top of the head, usually with a vertical direction; the tails small and compressed; all the fins small.

It is to the thick, grotesque shape, naked tuberculous skin, often marbled with sombre colours, great head, and wide gaping mouth–common to these fishes–that they owe the names of Frog-fishes and Toad-fishes, by which they are familiarly distinguished. The accompanying figure of one of the constituent genera of the Family, (Malthe nasuta, .) will illustrate one of the forms, and show how appropriate is the reptilian designation conferred upon them. Nor is this

at all an unfair specimen of the group; the other genera abound with species in which the aspect, external characters, and colours are so unlike those of ordinary fishes that an unscientific observer would be instantly reminded of a Frog or Toad.

The habits of these fishes have been already in part alluded to; some of the tropical species of Antennarius are so truly amphibious, as to come on shore, and crawl about in the fields for