THE ANGLER. (Lophius piscatorius.)
This extraordinary fish is occasionally met with on our coasts, and is commonly known by the names of the Fishing Frog, Toad Fish, and Sea Devil. In shape it is the most uncouth and unsightly of the piscatory tribe, resembling the frog in its tadpole state. It grows to a large size. A specimen taken in the sea, near Scarborough, was between four and five feet in length, the head considerably larger than the body, round at the circumference, flat above; the mouth is of a prodigious size, being a yard in width, and armed with sharp teeth. It lives, as it were, in ambush at the bottom of the sea, and by means of its fins stirs up the mud and sand, so as to conceal itself from other fishes on whom it preys. The manner in which it procures its prey is very extraordinary, the peculiarity of its construction forbidding the possibility of rapid movement. Two long tough filaments are placed above the nose, each of them furnished with a thin appendage, closely resembling a fishing-line when baited and flung out. The back is provided with three others, united by a web, and forming the first dorsal fin. Pliny notices these remarkable appendages, and explains their use. “The Fishing Frog,” says he, “puts forth the slender horns situated beneath his eyes, enticing by that means the little fish to play around till they come within his reach, when he springs upon them.” But it is not only the lesser inhabitants of the water that the Angler ensnares! Codfish of good size are often found in his stomach, and he occasionally seizes upon fishes as they are being drawn up by the line. Mr. Yarrell mentions an instance of an Angler attacking a conger-eel under these circumstances: the eel wriggled through the branchial aperture of his captor, and both were drawn up together.
Cicero also notices this extraordinary creature, in his Treatise on the Nature of the Gods. He observed its wonderful construction when musing on the shores of Sicily.