"First game for the day," said Frank. "Now, who will have the next?"
Fred made no response, but eyed the water intently, as he saw something moving in it close to the shore. Seizing a hand-net that lay on the ground, he made a sudden swoop in the water, and brought up a prize.
FRED'S PRIZE—THE MUD-LAFF.
"Second game for me!" he shouted, as he deposited on the ground a strange-looking fish, with a mouth opening directly upward instead of being placed where the respectable fish is accustomed to have his mouth. Below the head there was a spongy and shapeless mass, with the ventral fins attached, and the whole length of the fish was covered with a glutinous substance that stuck to the grass and weeds, where he had been dropped. Along the back was a row of spines, that rose and fell alternately, as though they were trying to pierce something. Both the boys pronounced the fish the ugliest product of the water they had ever looked upon, and the Doctor said the American sculpin was a model of beauty compared to this monster.
"His scientific name," said Doctor Bronson, "is Synanceia brachia, and he is popularly known as the mud-laff. He abounds in tropical waters, and in most Asiatic countries he is eaten by the natives; but the Europeans will have nothing to do with him. He lies in the mud and weeds at the bottom of rivers, and is quite concealed from view. You observe he has sharp eyes, which peer up through the water and watch for his prey; when it comes in his reach he sucks it in with a single inhalation, and this is why his mouth is so oddly placed. The spines on his back are poisonous, and if you should be pricked with them you would have a painful wound that might last you for weeks. Mr. Pike, in his 'Sub-Tropical Rambles,' tells of a man in the Mauritius who was stung on the sole of his foot by a mud-laff; the foot and leg swelled enormously, and after some days the wound sloughed, leaving a large hole. It was more than two months before the man was able to leave the hospital."