Ring and Staple.
Humble, and apparently insignificant, as the principle of the Ring and Staple may be, we owe no small amount of our domestic comfort to it. It meets us in all kinds of ways, in the hinges of our boxes, in the padlocks of our doors, in the innside fastenings for our horses, in the seaside fastenings for ships’ cables, and in a thousand other ways too many to enumerate.
On the right-hand side of the next illustration is shown the Ring and Staple as used for the purpose of mooring ships and boats, it being absolutely necessary that the machinery, simple as it is, must be capable of working in any direction, and with some latitude as to the extent.
On the left hand are shown two of the wonderful bones which are found in the head of the Fishing-frog or Angler-fish (Lophius), and which serve as decoys, by means of which the smaller fish are entrapped into the vast jaws of the Angler-fish.
It is clearly necessary that these singular appendages should be capable of movement in every direction, and this object is attained by the structure which is here shown, and which is almost equal to the ball-and-socket joint for its freedom of movement. It will even allow of partial rotation, so as to cause the little strip of skin at its end to assume the aspect of a living worm, and entice the smaller fish into the jaws of the dread trap that lies open before them.
A figure of this fish may be seen on page [92].