Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/550

532 appearance, they may perhaps not improperly be called the "sea-urchins" among fishes.

Another strange form is the fishing-frog, or angler (Fig. 18), whose enormous mouth enables it to swallow animals nearly as large as



itself, and whose anterior dorsal rays bear fleshy filaments, which it is said to use as a bait to decoy other fishes, that it may secure them as food.

In the cavities under stones in the sea are found the little toad-fishes (Fig. 19), whose head is so like that of a toad that we are ready to concede that both the popular and scientific names of these animals (batrachus) are well bestowed.



There are many other fishes that depart so much from the ordinary forms that the common fisherman instinctively names them after some land-animals. The sea-wolf or wolf-fish is one of these, although its head is more like that of a wild-cat or a lynx than it is like that of a wolf. It is sometimes called the sea-cat. Its body is long, with a dorsal fin nearly the whole length, and the head is round; its mouth is armed with a most formidable array of teeth, making this animal,