Page:Natural History, Fishes.djvu/34

20 morning) will serve as an illustration of the voraciousness of their habits. Here is the skeleton of a Frog-fish, two and a half feet in length, in the stomach of which is the skeleton of a Cod-fish two feet long, in whose stomach again are contained the skeletons of two Whitings of the ordinary size; in the stomach of each Whiting there lay numerous half-digested little fishes, which were too small and broken up to admit of preservation. The Frog-fish, with all these

, was taken last summer by the fishermen, and offered for sale in the market, as an article of food, without any reference at all to the size of its stomach, which, to them, is an every-day appearance.”

The ferocity with which the Trout tyrannizes over his fellows of the finny race is illustrated by the following graphic delineation, communicated to the “New Sporting Magazine;” which is interesting also for its notice of the habits of another species, far inferior in bulk, but fully equal to the Trout in pugnacity. The scene is a little limpid rill that flows down the side of Cheviot,