Mrs. Loudon's Entertaining Naturalist: Being popular descriptions, tales, and anecdotes of more than Five Hundred Animals.Loudon, Mrs. (Jane)
General
Mrs. Loudon's Entertaining Naturalist: Being popular descriptions, tales, and anecdotes of more than Five Hundred Animals.
Loudon, Mrs. (Jane)
Animals -- Juvenile literature; Zoology -- Juvenile literature
The Lump-sucker is very remarkable for the manner in which its ventral
fins are arranged. They are united by a membrane so as to form a kind of
oval and concave disc, by means of which it is enabled to adhere with
great force to any substance to which it fastens itself. Pennant says,
that, on throwing an individual of this species into a pail of water, it
adhered so firmly to the bottom that, on taking the fish by the tail,
the whole pail was lifted up, though it held some gallons.
In the Northern seas great numbers of the different species of
Lump-suckers are devoured by the seals, who swallow all but the skins,
quantities of which thus emptied are seen floating about in the spring
months; it is said that the spots where the seals carry on their
depredations can be readily distinguished by the smoothness of the
water.
[Illustration: THE OCELLATED SUCKER,
(_Lepadogaster cornubicus_,)]
ANOTHER Malacopterygious fish, a relative of the Lump-sucker, and
chiefly remarkable for the singular appendage observable on its head. It
possesses similar tenacity of suction. The utility of this faculty to
animals inhabiting the rocky shores and turbulent seas of Greenland is
sufficiently obvious.
[Illustration: 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
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