Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/722

 698 WOLFF WOLF FISH April, accompanied by his wife to Malta, set out on another missionary tour in the East, where, among other adventures, he was taken prisoner and 'sold as a slave, but finally reached Bokhara. After three months' labor among the Jews there, he started for India, passed through Afghanistan, the Punjaub, and Cash- mere, and reached Calcutta in March, 1833. Thence he went to Hyderabad and Cochin, visited the Jews of that region and of Goa, and sailed from Bombay for Arabia. He spent some time in Abyssinia, acquired the Amharic language, and returned to England via Malta in the summer of 1834. In 1836 he again visited Abyssinia, where he was hailed by some of the natives as their new abuna or patriarch, visited the Rechabites of Yemen, met a party of Waha- bees in the mountains of Arabia, who horse- whipped him because they could find nothing about Mohammed in the Arabic Bibles he had given them, and in 1837 sailed for Bombay, and thence to New York, where he arrived in August. Here ho received deacon's orders in the Protestant Episcopal church, then vis- ited the principal cities of the United States, preached, before congress, and in January, 1838, returned to England. He next visited Dublin, received priest's orders, and was set- tled as curate, first at Linthwaite and then at High Hoy land in Yorkshire. In 1843, when the news of the imprisonment of Col. Stod- dart and Capt. Conolly (a personal friend) at Bokhara reached England, he offered to at- tempt their release or learn their fate. The British government were unwilling to send him officially, but individuals furnished the means. Dressed in his doctor's hood, clergy- man's gown, and shovel hat, with a Bible in his hand, and announcing himself as "Joseph Wolff, the grand dervish of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and of the whole of Europe and America," he made his way through Persia to Bokhara. He had previously learned that Stoddart and Conolly had been beheaded, and he was himself made a prisoner and condemned to death ; but on the day fixed for execution the Persian ambassador interfered, and he was enabled to make his escape, and to avoid the assassins sent after him. He arrived in Eng- land in 1845, and settled as parish priest in the little hamlet of Isle Brewers, where he spent the rest of his life. He published " Journal of Missionary Labors" (1839), "Mission to Bo- khara" (1845), and "Travels and Adventures of Rev. Joseph Wolff, D. D., LL. D." (2 vols. 8vo, 1860). WOLFF, Wilhflm, a German sculptor, born at Fehrbellin, Brandenburg, April 6, 1816. He is called Thierwolff, to distinguish him from Emil Wolff, and on account of his sculptures of ani- mals. Among these are a buffalo struggling with wolf dogs; a lion startled by a serpent and combating it; "The Lion's Ride," after Freiligrath's poem ; and a bacchante playing with a panther. His other productions com- prise a colossal bust of Herder, statues of the elector Joachim II. and the electress Louisa Henrietta, and a large bust of Sebastian Bach. WOLF FISH (anarrhichas lupu, Linn.), a spiny-rayed fish allied to the blenny family, and inhabiting the seas of northern Europe and America. It attains a size of 3 to 5 ft. or more; the color is purplish brown above, with 10 to 12 transverse black or brown stripes ex- tending more or less over the whitish lower parts; the dorsal fin extends from behind the head almost to the caudal, and the anal is half as long, bringing the vent very far forward; the pectorals are very large, the caudal round- ed, and the ventrals absent ; the body is com- pressed, with small scales covered by a slimy skin ; head cat-like and rounded in front ; the stomach is short and fleshy, the diameter of the intestines uncommonly large, the gall blad- der enormous, the brain very small, and the air bladder absent. The teeth differ from those in most other fishes, not being attached directly to the jaws, but to bony processes connected with them by suture, and are therefore easily broken off ; they are strong, conical, and like canines in front, and rounded tubercles posteriorly and on the vomer and palate ; the tongue is thick and angular, adapted for directing the food between the powerful jaws; the lips are loose and fleshy. Few fishes have so savage an ap- pearance, and few fight so fiercely when caught; they live a long time out of water. Their food consists of crustaceans, mollusks, and echino- derms, whose shells are easily crushed and are voided almost unchanged ; they swim rapidly along the bottom, with an undulating motion, and are very active and destructive to nets. In the European seas the wolf fish is found from the English channel northward, being very abundant about Iceland ; its flesh is said to be exceedingly good, much like that of the eel, and is highly esteemed in Iceland, where it is used fresh and salted ; the skin is con- verted into a kind of shagreen used for bags and pouches, and the bile is employed as soap. The generic name is derived from the un- founded supposition that it climbs rocks by its fins and tail. The American species, found from New York to Greenland, has been con- sidered distinct by Agassiz, and named by him American Wolf Fish (Anorrhicbas vomerinus). A. wmerinus, from the different number and disposition of the teeth on the vomer. It grows from 3 to 5 ft. long, with a weight of 5 to 80 Ibs. ; it is caught all the year round by the cod fishers, but mostly in the winter, and especially on the Cusk rocks between Boston and Cape Ann ; the fishermen generally coll it " sea cat." Though its hideous appearance and slimy skin lead to its being in many instances